<»' 



A correct definition is often half way 
to the solution of any problem." 

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 




HN 64 
S26 



1914 *1<V" 

THE 



LABORER'S 
CATECHISM 

OR 

The Wide Way to a TRUE REPUBLIC 



By 

THOMAS JEFFERSON SANDFORD 

Author of 

Lex Fori, Move On Old Man, Etc. 



PAPER, 25 CENTS 



SECOND EDITION 



THE 

Laborers' Catechism 

or 
The Wide Way to a TRUE REPUBLIC 



BY 

Thomas Jefferson Sandford 

AUTHOR OF "LEX FORI." MOVE ON OLD MAN, ETC. 



'1 will speak out, I will be heard, 
Though all earth's systems crack : 
I'll not abate a single word, 
Nor take a tittle back." 



SECOND EDITION 



PUBLISHED BY 
THE SOCIETY OF THE TRUE REPUBLIC 

No. 149 CHURCH STREET 
NEW YORK 



**&■. 






Copyright by 

THOMAS JEFFERSON SANDFORD 

1914 



MAY I6i9i4 

©CI.A374116 

*4/ 



This little volume is dedicated to the memory 
of my father, John Sandford, a native of Ireland, 
whose love and advocacy of the truth have been 
so implanted in me, that, notwithstanding my 
social ostracism and the financial discrimination 
against me by bankers in my native city, I have 
never failed to array myself on the side of every 
principle which I considered true, no matter what 
the consequences. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON SANDFORD. 



PREFACE 



DURING twenty-six years, I have struggled 
to impart to mankind the ideas taught me 
by a great genius, now deceased. In season and 
out, I have advocated a system of voting which 
would stop vote-buying, a system of collecting 
taxes which would stop tax-dodging, and a sys- 
tem of issuing money that would prevent money- 
cornering, devised by the late David Reeves 
Smith. 

Although a member of the New York Bar and 
an ex-assistant tax- commissioner of Greater 
New York City, in neither of the old political 
parties have I been able to obtain a fair hear- 
ing in my efforts to explain said ideas. 

With the hope that the truth-loving reader 
will perceive in this Catechism a practical solu- 
tion, along the lines of natural justice, of the 
apparently intricate problem of Wealth-Cen- 
tralization, which now threatens the destruction 
of our republican form of government, I have 
prepared these questions and answers. 

Christopher Columbus spent eighteen years 
striving to interest some one with purchasing- 
power in his irrefutable theory, that the world 
was round. Finally he succeeded; and the dis- 
covery of a new hemisphere, which he gave to 



royalty, was the result. But David Eeeves 
Smith, immeasurably surpassed him, by show- 
ing mankind how, for the benefit of all, to justly 
use two hemispheres. 

I believe that every right-reasoning-mind that 
reads these pages and considers the three prin- 
ciples of government herein described, as essen- 
tially one whole framework, will be convinced 
that the most vicious features of all forms of 
government, to-day in existence, are the vote- 
buying of politicians, the tax-dodging of valu- 
able wealth-monopolizers and the money-corner- 
ing of bankers. With these pernicious practices 
eliminated, the majority of our minor evils will 
regulate themselves ivithout legislation. The 
world can then take a stride along the road of 
Progress, which will bring happiness to human- 
ity in a measure unknown to the seraphic 
dreams of those departed good souls who have 
worked so loyally in the past to promote the 
welfare of mankind. 

New York, N. Y., May 5, 1914. 



Equality of Natural Rights 

LESSON I. 

Has a man a right to life? He has. 

Who is the judge as to whether a man has or 
has not the right to life? The whole people of a 
nation, acting duly and regularly in the expres- 
sion of their will. 

What is your reason for saying a man has a 
right to live? The nature of things and the in- 
herent desire of all rational beings, force me to 
conclude that a man has a right to life, except 
when society decrees that in order to more ef- 
fectually preserve the lives of the many, the 
single life must be forfeited. 

What do you mean by the nature of things? 
The fitness or adaptability of one animate or in- 
animate thing on this earth to another. The fit- 
ness of grass and trees to grow on our globe's 
crust ; the tendency of water to flow down hill or 
to its level ; the capability of sand to fit into and 
around a rock; the tendency of this earth to 
move on its axis and around the sun; the dispo- 
sition and ability of man to sustain himself by 
devouring the products of the soil; the prone- 
ness of plants to seek light ; the aptitude of male 
tend female to consort; the tendency of lakes 
and rivers to fill up with sediment and a thou- 
sand and one other things. 

If a man has a right to live according to the 
consensus of civilized humanity, what other 
right is essential to a man's enjoying and exer- 



8 EQUALITY OF NATURAL RIGHTS 

rising his right to life? The right to the means 
of living is indispensable to the right to life. 

What are the means of living? Air, land, wa- 
ter, sunshine, and a voice in the management of 
any material thing which has not been created 
by individual or collective man. 

How can the means of living he justly enjoyed 
by all mankind so as not to impair, in the small- 
est degree, the rights of any individual? By 
adopting a system of ownership, which when ap- 
plied to the means of living, will not unjustly 
exclude anyone and will assure every person an 
equal opportunity to use the means of living as 
each sees fit, without abridging or interfering 
with the natural rights of anyone else 

Are all men torn free and equal? They are 
not. 

Why are they not? Because different en- 
vironments make men differently unequal. 

Explain what you mean. When a babe is 
born, in an unhealthful climate, on barren soil, 
of famished and imbecile parents, possessing 
weak minds and diseased bodies, it is not the 
equal of a babe born in a healthful climate, on 
fertile soil, of well fed and intelligent parents, 
possessing bright minds and vigorous bodies. 

What did Thomas Jefferson mean when he 
wrote in the preamble to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence i( that all men are created equal?" He 
intended, undoubtedly, to say "that all men 
were created with an equal eight to life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness." He was too in- 
telligent to write "that all men are born with 



OWNERSHIP 9 

equal ability." The offspring of the lowest 
beggar is not, generally, the equal, mentally or 
physically, of the child born of intelligent, 
healthful and industrious parents who live in a 
state of comparative independence; yet, the 
beggar's child has as good a right to life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness, as the son or 
daughter of the proudest prince in the world. 

How can the babe of a beggar and the off- 
spring of a prince each enjoy its equal right to 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which 
include the means of living? By establishing a 
system of ownership under which it is recog- 
nized, that all real and personal property is com- 
monly owned property, and that no real or per- 
sonal property is the exclusive property of any 
private individual, as against the state. 

LESSON II. 
OWNERSHIP 

Who owns this worldf The whole people at 
present living on the globe own this earth and 
every part of it. 

What do you mean by the term Oivnership? 
The ownership of a thing is ' ' the right to use the 
thing. ' ' 

Does each generation own this earth separate 
from and independent of succeeding genera- 
tions? They do not. Each generation owes it to 
the succeeding generations to do nothing with 
this sphere which will abridge or hamper the 
succeeding generations ' right to use it. 

By what term in the science of political econo- 



10 OWNERSHIP 

my is the land, air, fire, ivater, and various other 
natural elements, entering into the composition 
of the world (excluding humanity), correctly de- 
scribed? By the term Wealth. 

What is Wealth? "Wealth is anything which 
may be used or utilized." 

Why so? Because mankind is generally 
agreed that those things should be classified as 
Wealth which are useful to it. Wherever we 
find a human being who has an abundance of 
useful things we invariably speak of him as 
"wealthy." 

What is the essential property of Wealth? 
Utility. 

What is Utility? "Utility is that which satis- 
fies a desire or supplies a want." 

Is all the Wealth on this globe owned? Yes. 
It is owned by the whole people now inhabiting 
this sphere. 

Have dead generations, or any member of 
them, any right to bind with obligations the 
present generation? They have not. That is, 
dead generations have no right to prescribe the 
manner in which living generations should use- 
the wealth of this earth. 

Why not? Because the living generation can- 
not be justly bound by any contract in which 
they have exercised no consent, any more than 
we of the present generation can justly burden 
and limit the rights of coming unborn genera- 
tions. 

Has not this generation a right to make an 
improvement which will extend into a succeed- 



OWNERSHIP 11 

ing generation? It has, but the improvement 
must be performed with the labor of this gen- 
eration. This generation has no right to mort- 
gage or direct the labor of a succeeding genera- 
tion any more than the dead citizens of Athens 
had a right to tell us how and at what we, of 
this generation, shall labor. 

By what term is Wealth which is owned cor- 
rectly described? By the term Property. 

Hoiv is the Ownership of this earth naturally 
divided? It is naturally divided into layers of 
Ownership, the highest of which, is that vested 
in the whole people of the earth, who own the 
entire globe. The next highest Ownership is 
that vested in the people of a nation, who have 
the highest right to use (own) all the real and 
personal property within the jurisdiction of the 
nation. Within the United States, next to the 
Nation's ownership-layer, is the Ownership of 
each separate state, which is always subordinate 
to that of the Nation. Next under State-Owner- 
ship is County-Ownership which is subdivided 
into City or Town Ownership, which, in turn, 
is composed of Ward-Ownerships; and Ward- 
Ownerships are divided into individual Owner- 
ships. Individual-Ownerships, which are in- 
ferior and subject to all the higher Ownerships, 
are divided into Ownerships according to the 
lengths of the terms ; as, for life, for years, for 
months, for weeks, for days, etc. 

Who owns that rock lying in the road? The 
whole people of the earth. 

But the whole people of this earth cannot get 



12 OWNEESHIP 

near the rock, let alone use it. True. But they 
can justly decide what individual shall own or 
use the rock, by deciding that the person who 
will pay the rent on the highest valuation of it 
into the public treasury shall use it. 

Why pay the rent into the public treasury? 
Because the whole people of the world own the 
rock. 

Why not, then, pay the rent for the rock into 
the treasury of the world? Because there is as 
yet no public treasury of the world and, besides, 
each nation has so many rocks of its own that it 
does not care about the use of one such rock as 
that in the road, which has little or no value. 

75 the ownership of the land and everything 
which comes from it the same as the ownership 
of the rock? It is; and every piece of rock, 
wood, iron, land, gold, air, water, sunshine, 
moonshine, or the whole of such things on this 
globe, belongs to the whole people; and every 
individual on earth owns an undivided share 
in these things, just as tenants-in-common own 
real property under the present law. As these 
things cannot be divided into infinitesimal par- 
ticles and the particles given to each individual 
owner, the ownership of each individual is re- 
spected and exercised when any of these things 
is rented out fairly to the highest bidder and the 
rent expended in public improvements for the 
benefit of each individual owner in the Nation. 

How can the various Ownerships of indi- 
viduals, districts, cities, counties, states and 
nations be reconciled and enforced? By reqtiir- 



OWNERSHIP 13 

ing each subordinate ownership to give way, 
when it interferes with the exercise of a higher 
ownership, and by compelling every individual 
owner of wealth (which is anything useful) to 
pay rent or public taxes, annually, at a two per 
cent rate on the full value of the wealth he is 
using or owning, into the public treasury. 

Would requiring an individual owner to give 
way to the ownership of the town or some other 
higher ownership, effect the individual-owner a 
hardship® It might, in some cases; but as the 
basic principle of our form of republican gov- 
ernment is " doing the greatest good to the 
greatest number" the individual's welfare must 
be subordinated to the welfare of the greatest 
number. Yet, wherever an individual is effected 
an injury, in this manner, he is entitled to rea- 
sonable compensation by due process of law. 

Can the private ownership of property be 
justly abolished? It cannot. 

Why not? Because private ownership is the 
right of an individual to use some part of the 
common estate on which he should pay a two per 
cent tax or rent on its full value ; but such pri- 
vate property is always subject to the people's 
higher right to take said property for public 
purposes, at any time, provided said individual 
is duly and regularly compensated therefor. 

Does every man own any part of this earth 
as much as any other man? He does. 

Does each man own all this earth as much as 
any other man? He does. 

Can one man justly own more of this earth 



14 OWNEESHIP 

than another? He can, provided lie pays higher 
public rent or a two per cent tax on a higher 
valuation of it, than what any other man or men 
can or will pay to the people for the property. 

Can this earth be divided so that each man can 
get his equal physical share? It cannot. But it 
can be divided on a basis of value, in such a 
manner, that each man can get very nearly the 
exact share of the valuable earth to which he is 
naturally and justly entitled, according to his 
ability to pay public rent or taxes on the full 
value of the quantity of the people's wealth 
which he desires to use. 

What do you mean by the use of the term 
Value in such a division of the earth? I mean 
puechasing-powek which may be described as a 
relation between men and property. 

Are Value and "purchasing-power" identi- 
cal? They are. 

Can you further elucidate "purchasing- 
power"? Purchasing-power shows the relation 
between the owners of property on one side and 
the not-owners of property on the other side, 
in their efforts to obtain possession of the prop- 
erty. The greater the advantages to be derived 
from the possession of the property by its 
owners, the greater is the purchasing-power ex- 
ercised by such owners, and vice versa. Any 
property which is high in purchasing-power 
enables its owner to accomplish his purposes, 
such as making contracts with laborers or for 
the purpose of obtaining possession of other 
property, with much more ease than can an 



OWNERSHIP 15 

owner of property which is low in value. While 
it may be good for an individual- owner to have 
the things he owns high in value, it is not good 
for those who own none of such things. 

75 high purchasing -power or value good for all 
owners of property? It is for the owners when 
they are few in number, but if everyone pos- 
sessed an equal quantity of valuable wealth it 
would then make no difference, whether or not 
the purchasing-power of property was high or 
low. As it is impossible to enable everyone to 
possess an equal quantity of valuable wealth, 
for any conceivable length of time, it is better 
for the majority of mankind to have the "pur- 
chasing-power ' ' of property low; otherwise, the 
scheming, grasping, and provident part of hu- 
manity will exercise too great advantages over 
their fellow beings. 

Is high purchasing-power good for the not- 
owners of property? It is not. 

Why not? Because when the not-owners of 
high-purchasing-power-property desire to use 
any, they must give a greater quantity of their 
labor or useful articles produced by them, in 
order to get the high purchasing-power-prop- 
erty, than they would were the purchasing- 
power of the property low. The less the not- 
owners of purchasing-power-property are com- 
pelled to give for useful things, the more easily 
can they satisfy their wants and gratify their 
desires, which are among the chief purposes of 
humanity's existence. 

By what is the pur chasing -power of the 



16 VALUE AND PROPERTY 

owners of property effected? By the supply of 
the property; the difficulty of obtaining it; the 
desire to possess it and a great many other 
things. 

Do the owners of property strive to keep the 
value or pur chasing -power of their property 
high? They do, with very few exceptions. 

In what manner? By limiting the supply of 
their property to the workers, as the landlords 
do, in refusing to sell their land at a low price 
or to lease it at a low rent. Coal-lords, oil-lords, 
iron-Jords, food-lords, wood-lords, machinery- 
lords, money-lords, etc., also limit the supply of 
their valuable property in the same manner. 

How can the value or purchasing-power of 
property be reduced? By establishing a form of 
government under which no one owning real or 
personal property can hold it out of use, without 
annually paying the people a two per cent rent 
or tax on its full value. 

Hoiv could you make it unprofitable for a per- 
son to hold property out of use? By taxing the 
owner of the property on its full value whether 
it was in use or not. 

LESSON" III. 
VALUE AND PEOPEETY 

Is it just to tax property on its full value when 
it is bringing in no revenue? It is. 

Why so? For the reason that taxing prop- 
erty, or rather the owner of property, at its 
full value either forces the owner to employ it 
in such a manner that it will bring in a revenue, 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 17 

or the owner will be compelled to turn the prop- 
erty over to some one who will employ it to 
bring in a revenue, or at least it will save some- 
one from paying a third person a revenue. 

Does the value of property measure or take 
into consideration the revenue being derived 
from the property by the owner? It does and 
more. It takes into consideration not only the 
revenue being derived, but also the revenue that 
might be derived from the property. 

Would the full value of the property show to 
what extent the owner of the property was en- 
joying advantages over those who possess no 
such property? It would. 

In what way? For example : suppose that Mr. 
" A, ' ' on an isolated island, had a cellar full of 
bricks and his neighbors had none. The value of 
the bricks or the purchasing-power exercised by 
Mr. "A" would be exactly equivalent to the 
value of the things the neighbors would be will- 
ing to give to " A" for all the bricks ; but should 
the neighbors begin to supply themselves with 
bricks from some other source, the value of 
"A's" bricks would commence to diminish and 
continue diminishing in purchasing-power, until 
the neighbors had obtained all the bricks they 
required; then the bricks in "A V cellar would 
be very much lower in value or purchasing- 
power; consequently "A's" purchasing-power 
exercised through the ownership of the bricks, 
would be very much reduced. In this way the 
advantages which "A" at first enjoyed by his 
high purchasing-power through the ownership 



18 VALUE AND PEOPEKTY 

of the bricks, would be displayed in their high 
value, and the diminished advantages would be 
shown in the lower value of the bricks, within 
"A's" cellar after the neighbors had supplied 
themselves with bricks from another source. 

Would the fall in the value of the bricks make 
them any less useful? The reduction in the pur- 
chasing-power exercised by "A" through the 
ownership of the bricks, would make them less 
useful as capital with which to engage in a mer- 
cantile enterprise. But so far as satisfying a 
man's need for houses or supplying his want for 
shelter, they would be none the less useful. 

Do all things possessing the attribute of util- 
ity aliuays have the relation expressed by value? 
They do not. Air for instance is very useful 
but it has no value. 

Why has air no value? Because the supply of 
air is unlimited and, up to the present, no man 
has been able to fence it off or reserve a part for 
himself or others, or to keep enough of it out of 
use to force others needing air to suffer for the 
want of it ; as the owners of land, oil, coal, wood, 
flour, sugar, etc., do with the latter articles. Air 
in its natural state, heretofore, has not been 
monopolized so as to reduce any person's supply 
of it 

But, am I not paying more rent for the room 
I occupy on the front street, than do the tenants 
pay for the rooms they occupy in the rear, where 
the air is not so good? While you may give 
more rent for your room and on that account 
have access to better air than the occupants of 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 19 

rear rooms, you pay the extra rent because of 
the location of your room and its equipment. 
You can go into the street any time and obtain 
all the fresh air you need or desire for nothing ; 
but to occupy a particular room owned by your 
landlord, you must pay the landlord's price, be- 
cause the supply of rooms is kept small by tax- 
dodging on the part of the owners of rooms 
and the owners of other valuable wealth, who 
frequently object to the supply of rooms becom- 
ing so plentiful as to enable such room-renters 
as you, to have rooms of your own, and, much 
less, whole houses. If the landlords and other 
lords were forced, by law, to pay the people a 
two per cent annual tax or rent on the full value 
of their houses, lands, and on all their real and 
personal property, the land would have more 
houses on it, labor would generally emplofy 
itself, and you would not be forced to rent from 
any one; but you could, if industrious and provi- 
dent, own land enough and have building mate- 
rial enough to erect a home for yourself. 

Has not the landlord a just right to charge me 
rent for the use of a room in the house he has 
built himself? He has. But the landlord must 
not be permitted to forget that the land on which 
the house stands is the common property of the 
whole people and that the wood, brick, or stone, 
out of which the house is constructed, came orig- 
inally from the earth, which is, admittedly, the 
common property of the whole people; conse- 
quently, everything taken from the earth is also 
the common property of the whole people. The 



20 VALUE AND PROPERTY 

landlord has no more title, in justice, to the wood 
in the house than you, unless the landlord pays 
rent to the people or their governmental servant, 
on the full value of the commonly owned land, 
wood, bricks, nails, sand, and everything else, 
entering into the composition of the house. If 
your landlord, all other lords, and valuable 
wealth-owners, were to pay to the people the lat- 
ter 's rent on the full value of the people's prop- 
erty, the value of all kinds of property would 
become so low, generally, that you, provided 
you were industrious, would not be long in 
obtaining possession of a home of your own, in 
which you could have so many rooms supplied 
with fresh air and sunlight, that no one would 
be enabled to charge you excessive rent for a 
single room, because it has a window through 
which you can look and breathe directly into the 
front street. 

What has the greatest influence in determin- 
ing the rent charged by landlords for the use of 
their houses? The law of supply and demand as 
reflected in the value of houses. If houses are 
few in proportion to the demand, the rent is 
high, if houses are many in proportion to the 
demand, the rent is low. Consequently, those 
houses which bring their owners high rents are 
high in value, generally ; and those houses which 
bring their owners low rents are low in value, 
generally. 

7s it just that a landlord should charge a ten- 
ant any more for the use of a house than what is 



VALUE AND PEOPERTY 21 

sufficient to compensate him for repairing and 
restoring it to its original condition? It is. 

Why so? Value is the important institution 
or relation through which the people express 
their desires for different articles. If the value 
of hats is A and the value of trousers is 2A and 
the value of shoes 3 A, labor in the just state of 
society which I purpose to describe, will employ 
itself at producing shoes (3A) in preference to 
producing hats (1A) or trousers (2A), until the 
supply of shoes is so increased, that their value 
falls to 2 A. Then the major part of labor will 
fluctuate between work at producing shoes (re- 
duced to 2A) and work at producing trousers, 
until the supply of shoes (reduced to 2A) and 
trousers (2A) is so increased, that the value of 
shoes and trousers will fall to A, the value of 
hats, after which labor will fluctuate between 
producing hats, shoes and trousers at the value 
of A. 

Labor, when not interfered with by tax-dodg- 
ing monopolizers andmoney-cornerers, naturally 
engages itself, by contract or otherwise, at mak- 
ing things which are high in value, in prefer- 
ence to making things which are low in value. 
If labor is given fair play by being permitted 
access to the land, machinery, etc., at nearly as 
low a rent as that paid by the rich monopolizers 
and tax-dodgers to the state, laborers won Id be 
generally working for themselves and would not 
be engaged at slavish toil for tax-dodging capi- 
talists, as is the case under our present social 
organization. 



22 VALUE AND PEOPEETY 

Were the tax-dodging* owners of land, houses, 
mortgages, machinery, railroads, oil-wells, coal 
mines, etc., compelled to pay to the national gov- 
ernment a two per cent tax or rent on the full 
value of the various kinds of wealth which they 
are monopolizing, the tax-dodging owners of 
such wealth would abandon the greater quantity 
of the valuable wealth, which they now hold — 
some of which they are using and some of which 
they are not. Industrious laborers or workmen, 
would then take possession of the abandoned 
part (on which the idle rich could r^t pay their 
taxes or the people's rent) and employ them- 
selves. 

When the industrious laborer is given equal 
opportunity in the competition for the use and 
possession of the people's valuable wealth, the 
intelligent and industrious laborer will be the 
person who can pay into the public treasury, the 
highest rent for the use of real or personal 
property, and not the rich idler who generally 
collects from the users of wealth much more 
than what he pays to the government in the 
form of taxes, keeping the excess for himself, 
as is the case under our present organization of 
society. 

But you have not answered, responsively, my 
question about the landlord charging more for 
the use of a house than that which will suffice to 
restore the building and keep it in repair. I 
assert that the landlord should charge no more 
than what is necessary to repair and restore the 
house to its original condition? The wear, tear, 



VALUE AND PEOPEETY 23 

repairs, etc., will be adjusted in the rent charged 
for the building, which rent is based on the value 
of the building. If the house has no value it 
cannot be rented; and the landlord cannot get 
back even his expenses for the wear, tear, re- 
pairs, etc., much less any profit. Therefore, the 
landlord is justly entitled to something more 
than what will suffice to offset repairs and other 
expenses, viz., a reasonable profit, which is the 
landlord's wages. 

But don't you know that the great owners of 
valuable wealth in this country have substan- 
tially annulled the laws of value, by regulating 
the supply of useful things to suit their own pur- 
poses? I do. 

What can you do to prevent the rich owners 
of valuable wealth from regulating the supply 
of useful things? I shall answer that question 
in a subsequent lesson. 

Have you any respect for the rights of prop- 
erty? I have the greatest respect for the rights 
of property- owners and am most fastidious 
about their enforcement; but because a man 
originally came to this country ; ascended a high 
mountain; claimed all the land within sight; 
wrote of it a description which he filed in a 
County Clerk's office; or probably notified the 
Holland Land Co., King George or his agent ; I 
don't think it is just to permit him to hold such 
property in idleness or to use it only in part, 
without paying the people's taxes or rent on the 
full value of it, while his fellow-beings suffer 



24 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

for the want of such land and the things taken 
therefrom. 

Are you not an advocate of the single-tax-doc- 
trine f I am not; although I believe that only 
one single annual tax or rent on the full value of 
all real and personal property should be col- 
lected from its owners. 

Why are you not? Because " single-taxers ' ' 
are men who believe that the full value of land, 
only, should be taxed ; whereas I believe that the 
full value of everything taken from the land or 
made from the land should be taxed, as well as 
the value of the land itself. The value of land, 
the value of machinery, the value of houses, the 
value of a ton of coal, the value of a dollar, and 
the value of every material article having 
value, is exactly the same thing, namely, "pur- 
chasing-power." The single-tax theory would 
permit a man to take from the ground a large 
and valuable nugget of gold on which (when in 
the ground) he had paid taxes while it had been 
assessed only as farm land, without his being 
required to pay taxes thereafter on the nugget's 
full value, as it stood in his shop; leaving, 
thereby, for the people to tax the value of the 
empty hole made by the removal of the nugget. 

LESSON IV. 
WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

What is the difference between capital and 
valuable wealth? Substantially no difference — 
for the reason that all wealth having value may 
be employed as capital, and all capital (which 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 25 

is invariably wealth with value) may be used as 
wealth ; although the term ' ' capital ' ' can be cor- 
rectly applied only to that wealth which is "ac- 
cumulated purchasing-power " in reserve. 

Is a house, a machine, or an acre of soil, capi- 
tal? They are if each is capable of conferring 
"purchasing-power" on its owner. 

Is there any capital on this earth which has no 
value or " pur chasing -power"? There is not. 
Capital ceases to be capital the instant it will 
not confer "purchasing-power" on its owner. 

What is a capitalist? Any person who owns 
anything which confers "purchasing power" on 
its owner. 

Then a man who owns a hammer and a saw is 
a capitalist? He is a small capitalist, if such 
tools confer "purchasing-power" on their 
owner. According to that, nearly every one 
owns some capital? Almost every one does. 
Very few people are without some capital, but 
the big owners of capital have so much "pur- 
chasing-power" at their command, that they 
exercise enormous advantages over small capi 
talists. 

Is air, land, water, wood, stone, or sunlight^ 
ever capital? Whenever they have the relation 
expressed by value, they may become capital. 

Could capital be taxed so heavily as to destroy 
its value? It could; but it would thereby be 
rendered useless as capital ; yet it could still be 
of use as wealth. 

What would be the result if capital ivere taxed 
so heavily as to destroy its value. No one would 



26 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

want it for the purpose for which capital is used. 
It would be abandoned and not used to assist 
enterprising laborers by increasing the supply 
of useful things and the luxuries which human j 
ity desire. 

Is it just to excessively tax capital? It is not 

Why not? Capital is always some useful 
thing which confers on its owner "purchasiug 
power' ' and is generally accumulated so that it 
can be used to greater advantage in command- 
ing the services of toilers or the valuable prop- 
erty of other owners. It is generally employed 
to increase the supply of useful and ornamental 
things desired by humanity. To make its own- 
ers pay any more taxes or rent than is exacted 
from the owners of any other kind of wealth, 
having value and not used as capital, is discrim- 
inating against the enterprising who are gen- 
erally "capitalists" or the owners of capital. 
Because capital is capital or confers "purchas- 
ing power" on its owners, is no sensible reason 
for taxing it any more than other valuable 
wealth which is not used as capital. Taxes 
should be imposed only on valuable wealth or 
capital, according to the "purchasing-power" 
exercised by the owners, which shows, without 
exception, how badly those who have not the 
valuable wealth or capital, need it ; and also the 
extent of the advantages enjoyed by the owners 
of capital or valuable wealth. 

7s the value of some things ever out of pro- 
portion to their utility? Very frequently it is. 

Can you give any examples. Yes. For in- 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 27 

stance : the value of homes have increased out of 
proportion to their utility. When this country 
was first settled in colonial times, an ordinary 
man could obtain allodial title to a simple home 
by laboring four or five months; but to-day the 
great majority of ordinary men cannot, each, 
obtain allodial title to a simple home by labor- 
ing several years ; and in some cases a long life 
of labor has not procured a simple home in this 
age of worry and nervous strain. A simple 
home is 1 to-day no more useful, relatively, than 
was a simple home when this country was first 
settled ; but because the land, stone, timber, and 
other things, in this country, are more exten- 
sively monopolized and much scarcer in propor- 
tion to the population, to-day, than they were 
when this country was first settled, the demand 
for homes has increased enormously. Conse- 
quently, the value of a simple home, measured 
in average-day 's-labor, is, to-day, very much 
above the proportion which the value of homes 
should bear to their utility. 

Give another example. Take Mr. "A" who 
lives one mile from a spring of good clear water 
which is free to any person who wants the water. 
If "B" carries a pail of water one mile to 
' ' A 's ' ' home and it takes " B ' ' one hour to do it, 
"B" is entitled to some compensation for his 
services equivalent, on the average, to what any 
other average man could earn by working at 
something else for one hour. Now, if the aver- 
age man working ten hours a day, could earn 
two dollars each day at something else, "B" 



28 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

could justly charge "A," twenty cents for car- 
rying the pail of water from the spring to 
"A V home. In this case, the value of the 
twenty cents would be, on the average, about 
equivalent to the utility of the pail of water 
delivered to "A" at his door; but if some so- 
called "captain of industry" or corporation 
(which, with very few exceptions, is a special 
privilege monopolizer) were to take possession 
of the spring and compel " B ' ' to pay one dollar 
for a pail of water, and "B" after paying the 
dollar were to charge "A" one dollar and 
twenty cents; in this transaction the value or 
"purchasing-power" of the pail of water, would 
be above and out of proportion to the utility to 
"A" of the water in the pail. 

How are the vast majority of fortunes in this 
country made? 

By forcing the value or "purchasing-power" 
of valuable or not valuable wealth very much 
above that value which is commensurate with 
the utility of the wealth. 

How could the vast fortunes held in this coun- 
try and other countries be reduced? By the na- 
tional government imposing a two per cent an- 
nual tax rate or People's Eent on the full value 
of all valuable wealth whether great or small. 

What would be some of the effects of the im- 
position of a two per cent annual tax or rent- 
rate on the full value of all valuable wealth or 
capital? 

It would greatly reduce the monopoly of valu- 
able wealth and materially prevent speculation. 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 29 

It would also force owners of used and unused 
valuable wealth, to actively employ their wealth 
to the best advantage and refrain from holding 
out of use any valuable wealth, for the purpose 
of compelling not-capitalists or poor laborers to 
give a large proportion of their labor or its 
products, at some future time, for the permis- 
sion to support themselves. It would also have 
a strong tendency to force people from large 
and densely populated cities into small com- 
munities more sparsely settled and more inde- 
pendent, because of the reduced value of land 
and other necessities in the smaller com- 
munities. 

Would you tax stolen wealth on its full value 
the same as honestly acquired wealth? 

I would. 

Why? Because the important part of stolen 
wealth is not its owner 's illegal title, but the 
"purchasing-power" exercised by its illegal 
owners. The honestly and dishonestly acquired 
valuable wealth would alike finally revert to the 
State in fifty years, if a two per cent tax on its 
full value were collected annually from the 
honest and the dishonest owners. If all wealth 
were taxed on its full value, at a two per cent 
rate annually (excepting money, and home- 
steads exempt to the amount of $2,000), valu- 
able wealth would be so low in value that very 
few things would be stolen. Crime invariably 
increases as food, clothing, and shelter, become 
higher in value or more difficult to get; and 
crime decreases, when food, clothing, and shel- 



30 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 






ter, become less valuable and therefore less diffi- 
cult to get. 

What other effects ivould a two per cent tax 
on the full value of all wealth ivith value {ex- 
cepting money and the $2,000 homesteads) have? 

It would reduce enormously the revenue of 
valuable-wealth-monopolizers and remove a 
great part of the incentive to accumulate exces- 
sive quantities of valuable wealth, for the pur- 
pose of collecting present and future incomes 
therefrom. 

How could you make the owners of valuable 
wealth pay their taxes or public rent on the full 
value of their property? By compelling, through 
the enactment of laws, all real and personal 
property- owners to record their property in an 
assembly-district recording-office, under the 
penalty of forfeiting the unrecorded property to 
the first legal citizen who discovered the prop- 
erty unrecorded, and who would subsequently 
record said property in his own (the discov- 
erer's) name. 

Hoiv could you make the owners tell the truth 
about the value of their property? When every 
person owning real or personal property is re- 
quired by law to record it in an assembly-dis- 
trict-office under penalty of forfeiture to the 
private individual discovering the unrecorded 
property, there will be a real property list and 
a personal property list in each recording 
office. On each of these lists, the property-own- 
ers should be directed by law, to place a valua- 
tion on each recorded piece of property, or the 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 31 

price in ' ' just money, ' ' at which they would be 
willing to sell it. At whatever price they mark 
their property for sale, they should be required 
to pay taxes on that price or assessment, and be 
prepared to deliver it to the first person who 
would offer them the recorded amount, in money 
(cash), for it. 

Would not a law of that kind confiscate some 
person's property? It would when such persons 
are striving to hold real or personal property at 
too low a valuation for the purpose of tax- 
dodging. 

The government of the U, S. in order to force 
importers to tell the truth about the value of the 
goods they are importing, is obliged to con- 
fiscate all property valued, in the Bill of Entry 
by the importers, at less than fifty per cent of 
its true valuation. 

Radical diseases require drastic remedies. It 
is by the means of this "Ownership Record 
Law" and this "Self Assessment Law" that the 
rich owners of valuable wealth can be prevented 
from regulating the supply of useful things to 
suit themselves. 

lesson v. 

MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

What is the difference between Wealth and 
Utility? There is substantially no difference. 
Wealth is anything that is useful ; consequently 
all things that are useful are Wealth. ' ' Utility 
is that which satisfies a desire or supplies a 
want;" Wealth satisfies desires and supplies 



32 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

wants. Sunlight, moonlight, land, coal, wood, 
bonds, stocks, money, water, mortgages, etc., 
are useful, and to that extent are wealth. But 
stocks, bonds, money, mortgages, etc., to be use- 
ful must have some value; whereas sunlight, 
moonlight, land, coal, wood, water, etc., can be 
useful without value. 

Row is Wealth divided? Into two classes — 
Wealth which has no value and Wealth which 
has some value. 

Name some things which are Wealth without 
value. Air, labor, sunlight, moonlight, some 
kinds of land, some varieties of water, etc., are 
examples. Because they are useful they are 
Wealth; but if they cannot be monopolized; if 
no one desires to monopolize them for the rea- 
son that they cannot be made scarce ; or if they 
cannot confer "purchasing power" on their 
owners, they are without the relation which 
humanity recognizes by the term " value. " 

Can you name any wealth with value? Yes. 
Some kinds of land, coal, wood, bonds, food, wa- 
ter, money, diamonds, mortgages, etc., which are 
more or less scarce and difficult to get and which 
confer on their owners " purchasing-power," 
■are a few examples of wealth with value. 

Would mankind be better or worse off, if all 
wealth on this earth were deprived of all value? 
All wealth could not be deprived of all value. 
There will always be some land which will have 
some value, because there will always be a scar- 
city of some kinds of land as compared with other 
land. For example, there has never been enough 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 33 

land to supply everyone with a centrally located 
farm, or enough high land, located on a lake or 
river bank, to provide all, who desire such, with 
a lake or river site, either for agricultural or 
residential purposes. There will always be 
some land more fertile than other land; there 
will always be some scarcity of some kind of 
personal property; and as long as a thing is 
scarce in proportion to the demand for it, the 
thing will have, to some extent, the relation 
known by the term value, and therefore all 
wealth cannot be deprived of all value. 

Would mankind be better off if all wealth were 
deprived of 90 per cent of its value? They 
would. 

7s some value in some kinds of wealth good 
for humanity? It is. 

Why so? Because the value of some useful 
things serves to incite enterprising people to 
make or produce more or many of such things. 
Labor, as a rule, in the business world, does not 
make or produce useful things which have no 
value. The more valuable are certain things, the 
more is the tendency of labor to increase the 
supply of such things. Value also serves to 
justly determine who ought to occupy certain 
desirable pieces of land, by enabling the govern- 
ment (when it acts justly) to award such land 
to the person who will pay to the government, 
rent or taxes on the highest valuation, for said 
land or other valuable property. 

Is permitting the person who will pay the 
highest rent to the government for the use of 



34 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

real or personal property the best system under 
which real and personal property can be owned 
or managed and yet respect the subordinate — 
individual — rights of all the people? It is. 

Why so? Because renting out all the real and 
personal property to the highest rent-payer, pre- 
vents monopolizers from obtaining more than a 
just share of the people's valuable property. 
Monopolizers (who invariably object to paying 
full rent or taxes on the full value of their real 
and personal property to the people) could not 
then hold out of use, property for which other 
individuals (laborers) without such property, 
are willing to pay a higher rent to the' govern- 
ment, which is simply the agent of the whole 
people. 

Would this plan of determining title to prop- 
erty be better than that founded on the favori- 
tism of some monarch or on priority of applica- 
tion or discovery? It would. 

Why so? Because kings are too often gov- 
erned by intoxicants and lewd women, in select- 
ing their favorites who, with few exceptions, are 
the least competent of all persons to employ real 
and personal property to its greatest advantage. 
Priority of application, discovery, or possession, 
is entitled to no consideration when the appli- 
cants for the people's property have not agreed 
to pay to the people an equal amount in rent or 
taxes for the use of the property. But when 
several applicants desire the same property and 
refuse to compete for the use of it, then priority 
of application, discovery, or possession, should 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 35 

be resorted to, in order to enable the first ap- 
plicant, discoverer, or possessor, to nse the 
property. In all competitive cases, the legal 
citizen who will pay the highest annual rent or 
an annual two per cent tax on the highest valua- 
tion of the property to the people for the use of 
the property, whether it be real or personal, 
should have it. 

Can one man fix the value of any useful thing? 
He can not. 

Why not? Because the value of every useful 
thing is effected not only by what the owner de- 
mands for it, but by what others are willing to 
give in exchange for it and innumerable other 
things. Therefore two or more persons must be 
present to contract before the relation, value, 
arises. 

Can one man justly fix the price of any useful 
article? Not for the people, when they desire to 
take possession of it for public use, by giving 
to the owner compensation and proceeding ac- 
cording to due process of law. 

Can one man {the private owner) justly fix 
the price for an individual? He can. 

Why so? Because the price of a thing can be 
made high or low, between one man and another, 
by contract or express agreement, without re- 
gard to the value of the article, as effected by the 
demand for or supply of the article. 

What is price? "When two things are ex- 
changed, one for the other, each is the price of 
the other." 

Can you illustrate by an example? Yes. 



36 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

Should I give my hat to a man in exchange for a 
dollar, the hat would be the price of the dollar 
and the dollar would be the price of the hat. 
Should I give an apple to a man in exchange for 
a potato, the price of the apple would be the 
potato and the price of the potato would be the 
apple. The man with whom I have traded, bears 
the same relation to the potato that I do to the 
apple; therefore, "when two things are ex- 
changed, each for the other, each is the price of 
the other.' ' 

What mistake do many people make in their 
conception of the term, Price? They believe that 
Price is something expressed in terms of money 
only. 

Is the transaction the same when commodity 
is exchanged for commodity as ivhen commodity 
is exchanged for money? It is. 

Why so? In the exchange of commodity for 
money it is generally an exchange of one valu- 
able thing for another valuable thing ; and in the 
exchange of commodity for commodity it is also 
generally an exchange of one valuable thing for 
another valuable thing. 

Z5 Money essential to the making of all ex- 
changes in civilized nations? It is not. 

Why not? Because a commodity can be ex- 
changed for a commodity without any money, 
although the owners of the commodities gener- 
ally examine the value of the commodity to be 
exchanged, and compare it with the value of 
some kind of money, before making the ex- 
change. This is the reason why the most impor- 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 37 

tant function of money is to measure value, not- 
withstanding the assertions of some economists 
that the most important function of money is 
' ' to facilitate exchange. ' ' • i Just money ' ' meas- 
ures the value of not only the things exchanged, 
but also the value of many pieces of real and 
personal property, for assessment purposes, 
which have not been exchanged in years. Be- 
sides, in many transactions in which money is 
not used, the traders compare the value of the 
things to be exchanged with the value of money, 
before making the trade. Many exchanges are 
made without money, but few exchanges are 
made without comparing the value of the thing 
to be exchanged with the value of some kind of 
money. 

With what is the value of all real or personal 
property in this country generally compared? 
With the value of the money of the United 
States which is composed of dollars and frac- 
tions thereof. This is another reason why many 
persons erroneously conclude that Price cannot 
exist only in relation to money. 

Is Utility the chief feature in making ex- 
changes? It is not. Utility has much to do with 
inciting exchanges but the most important fea- 
ture of an exchange is the value of the things 
exchanged because each trader generally strives 
to give things with as little value as possible 
and to receive things with as much value as pos- 
sible. 

Does the money of the United States or of any 
other nation measure the value of the articles ex- 



38 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

changed by merchants with any degree of justice 
or accuracy? It does not. 

Why not? Because IT. S. dollars and the coins 
of other nations fluctuate very much in value or 
"purcha sing-power, " due to the change in the 
supply of or demand for them. When many 
U. S. dollars pee capita are in circulation, their 
value or " purchasing-power' ' is comparatively 
low; but when few U. S. dollars per capita are 
in circulation, their value is comparatively 
high. As the owners of U. S. dollars (including 
the U. S. government), can hold out of circula- 
tion or freely pass into circulation U. S. money, 
the owners of dollars (including the govern- 
ment) can increase or decrease the supply of 
dollars (to the extent that they own them), and 
thereby cause the dollars to fluctuate in value or 
" purchasing-power/ ' which makes it impossible 
for U. S. dollars to accurately measure the value 
of other things, which themselves fluctuate in 
"purchasing- power," on account of the increase 
or decrease in the supply of or the demand for 
such other things. Because the owners of 
money (including the government) sometimes 
freely circulate their dollars and sometimes do 
not, the change in the circulation- supply of U. S. 
dollars, causes a variation in the quantity of 
value or "purchasing-power" exercised by each 
money-owner, through his ownership of one or 
more U. S. dollars. This change in the supply 
of, or the demand for U. S. dollars makes it im- 
possible for a U. S. dollar to possess an exact, 
fixed, or definite quantity of value, for any defi- 
nite period of time ; therefore, U. S. dollars can 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 39 

not and do not, accurately, measure the value of 
land, hats, potatoes, beef, or any other com- 
modity, which is itself changing constantly in 
supply or demand, any more than a yardstick, 
which changes materially in length, can ac- 
curately measure distance. It is the same with 
all other nations' money. 

Would it not be well to have the U. S. govern- 
ment go out of the money issuing business? It 
would not. 

Why not? Because the duty of the govern- 
ment is to regulate the supply of money, the 
same as its duty is to regulate the length of 
yardsticks and the number of ounces in a pound- 
weight. If private individuals were permitted 
to regulate the length of yardsticks, they would 
make them long when buying and short when 
selling. 

Have you any plan under which a dollar that 
will not change materially in value can be 
issued? I have. 

What is it? It is a system of issuing money 
under which the supply of dollars is based on the 
needs of laborers and under which the dollars 
cannot be cornered by private individuals. But 
the present fiscal policy of the U. S. government, 
which is directed and controlled in the interest 
of professional money manipulators, is to in- 
crease or decrease the supply of money, chiefly 
in accordance with the needs or demands of 
speculators in Wall street, and similar places. 

Will you explain your system of issuing 
money which cannot be cornered? I will in a 
subsequent lesson. 



40 DEATH EATE EENT 

LESSON VI. 
DEATH KATE BENT 

Why do you fix the people's rent or public tax 
on the value of real and personal property at 
"two per cent" per annum? Because according 
to the best attainable statistics, this nation on 
an average extending over a nnmber of years, 
produces annually two per cent more wealth 
than what it consumes. This surplus ' ' two per 
cent" is what is left after the people have had 
their living, and it belongs to the whole people 
of this nation, for the reason that all the real 
and personal property in the United States 
(from which the products consumed and saved 
by the nation have been taken) is the common 
property of the whole people of this nation and 
should be generally enjoyed by every United 
States citizen. This "two per cent" annual 
surplus of the products can best be returned to 
its rightful owners (the people) by expending it 
in the establishment of parks, hospitals, public 
highways, railroads, school- houses, etc., which 
can be enjoyed alike by all members of the 
nation. 

Can you give any other reason for fixing the 
people's rent or tax at "two per centum?" Yes. 
Taking annually "two per cent" of the full 
value of all valuable wealth from all private in- 
dividual-owners and putting it into the nation's 
treasury would establish a cash-fund or store 
of products which could be used in employing 
all who needed employment, and thereby make 



DEATH RATE RENT 41 

up the deficiencies in the living of those unfor- 
tunate or improvident workers who were not 
obtaining their just share of the commonly 
owned real and personal property, on account of 
the shrewdness, enterprise, providence, parsi- 
mony and unscrupulousness of the class known 
as "large capitalists,' ' who because of their 
ability, under any condition of society, can gen- 
erally take extraordinarily good care of them- 
selves. 

Have you any other reason for fixing it at 
"tivo per cent ,f instead of one, ten, fifteen, or 
twenty, etc., per cent? I have. What is it? If 
this government were to take annually any 
higher rent, say four, six, eight, or ten per cent, 
on the full value of an individual-owner's pri- 
vate property, the amount left to the individual' 
would be so small that he would become discour- 
aged and cease to produce more than that barely 
sufficient to support himself and dependents. It 
is the duty of a just government to encourage 
its subjects to make provision for adversity or 
the evening of life, and to discourage indulgence 
in the extravagance and improvidence gen- 
erally characteristic of those who are provided 
with pensions. Excepting the aged and crip- 
pled, no one should ever be so poor as to be de- 
pendent on government bounty. Two-per-cent- 
rent annually, on the full value of all real and 
personal property, is so low a rate that the en- 
terprising workers or capitalists would scarcely 
notice its subtraction from their wealth ; where- 
as, any higher rate would be materially felt by 






42 DEATH EATE EENT 



the worker or capitalist. Less than two per cent 
annually, would not redistribute the accumula- 
tions of the " capitalist class" fast enough to 
prevent the large capitalists from exercising 
too great advantages over the improvident 
workers and small capitalists. 

Can you give any other reason for fixing the 
people's rent at tivo per cent? Yes. Give it. 

Moses, one of the greatest law-givers that 
ever lived, discovered that, in a period of about 
fifty years, the scheming and industrious i i capi- 
talist class' ' would appropriate to themselves 
almost everything desirable, if they were not 
restrained in some way or manner. Conse- 
quently he (see Leviticus, chapter 25) decreed 
that the year of the Jubilee should come once in 
every fifty years, when the "capitalist class' ' 
were required to return, to the original owners, 
the lands and homes they had taken from the 
original owners, by trading (legitimate contract 
or unconscionable bargain) with the thoughtless 
or improvident not-capitalist class. Taking 
"two per cent" each year on the full value of 
all real and personal property is a much better 
plan of distribution than that of taking in each 
fiftieth year all the property lost by the not- 
capitalist or small capitalist class and which 
had been acquired by the large capitalist class. 

Why not use Moses' method of distribution 
now? Because the "two per cent" method of 
redistributing the lands, houses, etc., acquired 
by the "large capitalist class" is a material im- 
provement on Moses' cumbersome plan, which 



DEATH BATE EENT 43 

must have caused a great breaking up of the for- 
tunes of the "large capitalist class" in one 
single year; whereas the "two-per-cent-people's 
rent" could be taken annually from the enter- 
prising and insatiable capitalists and tax-dodg- 
ing millionaires, without producing any jar to 
society, as it is now organized. In a period of 
about fifty years, approximately, one hundred 
per cent of the full value of all real and personal 
property (with the exception of the value of 
money and homesteads) acquired by the wealth- 
owners or capitalist class, would be taken from 
them by this "two per cent tax' and placed in 
the public treasury to supply a fund which 
would be returned to the disinherited, in the 
form of employment at making things to be en- 
joyed by the whole people. This would be a 
scientific redistribution of valuable wealth which 
would cause no disturbance to society. 

What other advantage would result from the 
collection annually of a "two per cent rent" on 
the full value of all real and personal property , 
{with the exceptions heretofore mentioned) 
from the owners? 

It would prevent the despoiled workers from 
having recourse to violence in order to get 
enough real or personal property to live on. In 
all old nations now existing on this earth, the 
impoverished class have been forced, at some 
time or another, to shed blood, in order to avoid 
starvation, at the very same time the rich tax 
dodgers were revelling in satiety. 

Why do you except from taxation and levy, 



44 DEATH EATE RENT 

under a judgment for debt, homesteads valued 
at $2,000 oilessf 

Because no man or family should ever be per- 
mitted to become so poor, on account of tbeir 
having no means of supporting themselves, that 
they are obliged to be a burden on society. When 
every family has a home which can not be taken 
away from it for the nonpayment of the people 's 
"two per cent" rent (taxes), or the non-pay- 
ment of debts, every family will be, in this man- 
ner, guaranteed the permanent possession of 
enough capital to live, with the assistance of 
labor, in modest comfort. Then, it would not be 
necessary for the government to pension in old 
age those who had been improvident in the vigor 
of their lives. Those who will not work should 
be exposed to the stings of poverty. 

Would it be just to permit the head of a family 
to own a home equivalent in value to two thou- 
sand dollars and not pay his debts? It would. 
Why so? For the reason that all creditors 
would soon learn not to give credit to the head 
of any family because he or she owned a two 
thousand dollar home. A creditor would riot 
then expect to sell a home under execution, in 
the event of the head's failure to pay his or her 
debts. With homes exempted in this manner, 
no sensible merchant would give credit based 
on the $2,000 home, or any part of it, to anyone. 
All credit given to a family head would, there- 
after, be based on property owned by the head 
of the family in excess of the two thousand dol- 
lars. Homes above two thousand dollars in 



DEATH EATE KENT 45 

value, should pay public rent or taxes on the 
excess and be subject to levy under judgments, 
duly and regularly obtained, for the non-pay- 
ment of debts. 

Why do you propose to exempt money from 
taxation? Because money should be permitted 
to flow uninterruptedly through the channels of 
trade, without its owners fearing any loss, by 
taxation. If money is taxed, however little, some 
of its owners will hide or refrain from using 
it openly and freely in trade or manufacturing 
enterprises and, as a consequence, interfere with 
the money supply and thereby have a tendency 
to change its value. Yet, claims or obligations, 
such as debts, promissory notes, bonds, mort- 
gages, etc., held by creditors against debtors, 
and payable in money, should be taxed accord- 
ing to the value of such claims or obligations; 
but no claim or obligation, such as a debt, note, 
bond, or mortgage, should be legal, unless re- 
corded for taxation purposes, like any other 
personal property, in an assembly-district-re- 
cording office. 

Taxing the actual money in possession of an 

individual would have a tendency to keep it out 

: of circulation and make it scarce to enterprising 

persons who desired to engage in the production 

)r manufacture of valuable useful things, there- 

i Dy increasing the value of money, which would 

be disadvantageous to debtors and laborers. 

B The government, only, should issue money, and 



46 DEATH RATE RENT 

private individuals, such as gold-owners and 
national bankers, should be forced to go out of 
the money-issuing business. In order to avoid 
doing injustice to either the lender or borrower, 
or the buyer or seller, the value of a dollar 
should be, at all times, the same. 

Can you give still another reason for fixing 
the "people's rent" or public tax at "two per 
cent?" I can. Give it. 

The annual death rate in the United States is 
about twenty persons in every one thousand or 
two per centum, when conditions are normal. If 
the property of those dying annually were taken 
by the national government each year, for the 
benefit of the whole nation, the U. S. Govern- 
ment would acquire about two per cent of all the 
real and personal property in the United States 
each year, and in a period of about fifty 
years, on the average, would have possession of 
nearly all the real and personal property in the 
nation. Consequently, this government, pro- 
vided it rented out all real and personal prop- 
erty to private individuals, at the "people's 
rent" or public tax (two per cent annually on 
the full value of all real and personal property), 
would be in the same position with regard to 
property, that it would be in, if it took, each 
year, all the real and personal property left by 
those dying annually. 

Who discovered this Natural Laiv of Distribu- 
tion? The late David Reeves Smith. 

What did he call it? The "Death Rate Tax." 



IMPOETS AND EXPORTS 47 

LESSON VII. 
IMPOETS AND EXPORTS 

Why do you lay so much stress on the term 
Value? Because Value is simply the "purchas- 
ing-power" exercised by the owners of valuable 
wealth and is the most important term or rela- 
tion to be found in the Tariff, Land, Labor, 
Money, Capital and Taxation questions. 

Why is Value important in considering the 
tariff question? Because all of our imports and 
exports are, generally, estimated according to 
their value, and the value of either imports or 
exports shows how, relatively, important the 
imports or exports are to the American people. 
When many things are exported from this coun- 
try, the supply of such things left for home-con- 
sumption is decreased, which has a tendency to 
increase the value or "purchasing power' ' con- 
trolled by the owners of the supply remaining in 
the home market. When many things are im- 
ported, the supply of such things in this country 
is increased, which has a tendency to decrease 
the value or "purchasing power" exercised by 
the owners of such things in this country. As 
the majority of people in the United States are 
interested in having the value of the things they 
need or desire to use, low; no tax or other ob- 
stacle should be permitted to interfere with 
those owners of imports who are increasing the 
home supply of useful things, and thereby de- 
creasing the supply's value, to home-consumers. 
But when an exporter is taking useful things 
away from this country and thereby decreasing 



48 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 

the supply in the United States and, as a result, 
increasing the value of useful things to home 
consumers, he should be prevented as much as 
possible by being compelled to pay an export tax 
of twenty per cent on the full value of every- 
thing he exports. 

But isn't a tax upon exports prohibited by the 
Federal Constitution? Yes. Article 1, section 
9, paragraph 5, of the Federal Constitution for- 
bids a tax on exports. But said paragraph is an 
insane prohibition and should be legally stricken 
from the Constitution. 

Would not a tax upon exports decrease the 
quantity of things bought from us by foreigners 
and, consequently, decrease the employment 
given our American workers? It would. But 
work is not what our American mechanics or 
laborers want : it is the things they can procure 
by the means of the "purchasing power " they 
exercise through the receipt of their wages, 
whether in money or kind. What our laborers 
truly want is good food, clothing, shelter, lux- 
uries, ornament, etc., low in value. Wendell 
Phillips expressed the idea, when he said : 1 1 Hu- 
man progress shows itself in a fall of prices and 
a rise of wages." 

Laborers can always get all the ivork they 
want by offering to toil for little or nothing, and 
if they would always so offer, they would never 
be without work during any season. If Amer- 
ican workmen, including the soil-tiller, each pro- 
duced one-half as much as they are now produc- 
ing with the assistance of labor-saving-machin- 






IMPOETS AND EXPORTS 49 

ery (and received nine-tenths of their products 
as wages), they wonld be much better off than 
they now are; notwithstanding the great quan- 
tity of their time spent at toiling, while receiv- 
ing for said toil, on the average, less than one- 
fourth of the value of their labor-products, as 
wages. 

Why do the old political parties deliberately 
force upon the people discussions of the tariff 
question without mentioning the importance of 
the term Value? Because they fear that a dis- 
cussion of Value as related to the Tariff Ques- 
tion would precipitate a discussion of Value as 
bearing on the Land, Labor, Money, Capital, and 
Taxation Questions. Should the people once 
learn that the most important element in the 
examination and analysis of these questions is 
Value, they would not be long in discovering 
that value is "purchasing power' ' and that it is 
the "purchasing power 7 ' exercised by the com- 
paratively few owners of valuable wealth in this 
country that is effecting our American people 
(particularly the workers) the greatest injury; 
and not the quantity of time spent by foreign 
workmen in making useful things to be con- 
sumed by or sold to Americans. The Tariff Ques- 
tion has been employed, year in and year out, to 
divert the attention of the American public from 
the more important topics — the Land, Money, 
Labor, Capital and Taxation Questions. 

Who are the classes that generally own the 
vast volume of our exports now being sent 
abroad? The same class that generally own our 



50 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 

land, our coal-mines, oil-wells, railroads, ma- 
chinery, banking establishments, etc. The sur- 
plus of exports over imports now going abroad, 
annually, is not owned by American workmen. 

Do you believe that taking off all the tax on 
imports or putting the tax on them higher, will 
relieve our American people from the oppres- 
sion of the trusts? It will not. 

Why not? Because with a high tax or no tax, 
on either our imports or exports, the monopo- 
lizers of the great quantities of valuable wealth 
in this country, will still extort from the laborer 
(unless taxed annually two per cent on the full 
value of their valuable wealth) the major part 
of his products, in the name of Rent for land or 
other property, Freight or Passenger Charges 
for the use of railroads; Rent or Interest for 
the use of money controlled by the bankers ; ex- 
tortionate prices for the necessities of life, etc. 

How would you have the value of our imports 
and exports justly measured? By a money 
based on an American Unit of Labor and not 
based on any yellow metal owned and controlled 
by the Pothschilds and their kind. 

Would you not as the result of such a policy 
abandon the so-called ''stable gold standard?" 
T would. But the so-called ' stable gold stand- 
ard" is anything but stable. 

Would not such an abandonment be injurious 
to American ivorkingmen? It would not. Why 
not? Because the gold standard is controlled 
chiefly by the Bank of England and the Bank of 
England is controlled chiefly by the Pothschilds. 



IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 51 

This control enables foreigners to juggle with 
the value of our imports and exports and 
thereby do us, in trading, immeasurable injus- 
tice, which the superficial thinker can not see. 
Whereas, if we had a "standard of value' ' based 
upon a Unit of American Labor, we would be 
enabled to measure the value of all our imports 
and exports by our own "standard of value. " 
and in this way discover that we are being ex- 
ploited by great foreign capitalists, as well as 
by great domestic capitalists. The man who 
does the weighing and measuring, between con- 
fiding traders, is prodigiously important; but 
much more so, is the money manipulator who in- 
creases or decreases, when he pleases, the value 
of gold coins with which the value of imports 
and exports is measured. 

When will you explain the money system un- 
der which Americans can accurately measure the 
value of their imports and exports and also the 
value of all domestic real and personal property, 
for the purpose of just taxation? 

In a subsequent chapter. As soon as I have 
your mind in proper shape for a correct concep- 
tion of the proposed Just Money, I shall explain 
it. I am leading up to it as fast as possible. 

What do we generally receive in exchange for 
the great quantities of corn, wheat, beef, pork, 
cotton, etc., we send abroad? The rich tax-dodg- 
ing-valuable-wealth-owners of this country, gen- 
erally receive in exchange for our exports, ex- 
pensive jewelry, ostentatious automobiles, pre- 
cious stones, rare paintings, and letters of credit 



52 IMPOETS AND EXPOETS 

which are chiefly used by our American million- 
aires, tax-dodgers, etc., to supply themselves 
and families, when abroad, with entertainment, 
riotous living, and articles of ornament. 

What else is done with our exports® They are 
used to satisfy the demands by foreigners for 
earnings or profits on foreign capital invested in 
this country, or to pay rents on the real and per- 
sonal property in the United States owned by 
foreigners. 

75 this investment of foreign capital in this 
country a benefit to our workers® Generally, it 
is not. 

Why not? Because the foreign capitalist does 
not invest any capital (which is "purchasing- 
power" in reserve) in this country, unless the 
probability is, that he will take out of this coun- 
try a good deal more "purchasing-power" than 
what he has put in. When a foreign capitalist 
invests one ounce of gold in this country, he gen- 
erally takes back many ounces of gold or their 
equivalent, in "purchasing-power" before the 
elapse of many years. If our government would 
properly and justly regulate the supply of 
money, we would never be required to go in debt 
for any foreign capital ; but would always have 
all the American owned capital or ' t purchasing- 
power" we needed. 

What famous statesman and philosopher who 
lived about six hundred years before Christ, ap- 
preciated the necessity of making it difficult to 
export his nation's products, in order to promote 



LABOEEE AND THE TAX-PAYER 53 

the general iv elf are of his people? Solon, the 
learned Athenian. 

What did he do with regard to taking useful 
things out of his country? In "Plutarch's 
Lives' ' it is written: "Of all the products of 
the earth, he (Solon) allowed none to be sold to 
strangers, but oil : and whoever presumed to ex- 
port anything else the Archon was solemnly to 
declare him accursed or to pay himself a hun- 
dred Drachmas into the public treasury." 

LESSON VIII. 
THE LABOEER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

What class in the United States in the last 
analysis pays all the taxes? The workers who 
make or produce all the useful things used or 
enjoyed by all the classes. 

How do you prove your assertion? By the fol- 
lowing example : if we could place all the useful 
things made by the workers throughout the 
United States, during a single year, in one cen- 
trally located pile, and in charge of Uncle Sam, 
the colossal heap would disappear in quantities, 
which would be removed from the pile, by bank- 
ers, office-holders, railroad-kings, brokers, law- 
yers, merchants, mine-owners, real or personal 
property owners, and other similar classes, who 
in many instances, after providing extrava- 
gantly for themselves, would leave only a small 
remainder of the useful things to be consumed 
by the workers; and if there were enough left 
to sustain the workers, well and good ; if not, the 
workers unable to get their just share of the 



54 LABOEEE AND THE TAX-PAYEE 

pile, would be forced to beg, steal or starve. 

But would not the classes you mention and 
who obtained first chance to supply themselves, 
pay Uncle Sam for each thing taken ? True. 
They would hand Uncle Sam valuable orders on 
the pile called " money, " but this money would 
be useless, if it did not have value, or confer 
"purchasing power, " on its owners. 

How did these classes, supplying themselves 
from the pile, obtain the orders or money which 
enabled them to purchase from Uncle Sam the 
things in the pile which they desired? Many 
earned them by rendering good service in ex- 
change, a few legally stole them, and a part of 
the "banking class" manufactured many of 
them. 

What has this to do with your assertion that 
the workers pay all the taxes? It shows that all 
the useful articles received and enjoyed by the 
"leisure or non-producing-class " must be sup- 
plied by the workers, otherwise, any money col- 
lected by the tax-gatherer or paid to stock-own- 
ers, etc., in the form of dividends, etc., is useless, 
unless it is an order enabling the purchase of 
some of the useful and luxurious articles, pro- 
duced by the workers. 

On what does the most important part of the 
value of these orders depend? On the "law- 
making-power," which is generally operated in 
the interest of every class, except the working 
class. 

75 it a matter of importance to the workers 
what things are taxed when the workers ulti- 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 55 

mately pay all the taxes? It is. Why so? Be- 
cause direct taxes which are apportioned among 
states or other divisions according to the num- 
ber of persons, as provided by the Federal Con- 
stitution (article 1, section 9, paragraph 4), do 
not fall upon the tax-dodger with as much jus- 
tice as when they are apportioned among the 
states or other divisions, according to the value 
of the property held and owned within the states 
or other divisions. Taxes that fall on the own- 
ers of real and personal property according to 
value, fall with less weight on the enterprising, 
and more weight on the monopolizing. 

Are indirect taxes favorable to workers? They 
are not. 

Why not? Because indirect taxation is a com- 
plicated method of taxing the owners of prop- 
erty and falls most heavily on the workers, who 
are the most numerous body of consumers. Di- 
rect taxation, according to the value of the prop- 
erty held by all owners, is the only just system 
of taxation that can be employed by a demo- 
cratic form of government. 

Should all indirect taxes be abolished? They 
should. 

Why so? Because when the owner of real or 
personal property has once paid the annual pub- 
lic rent or two per cent tax on the full value of 
his property, he is unjustly and doubly taxed, 
by being compelled to pay any transfer, income, 
inheritance or succession tax or rent. 

Hoiv do workers suffer most by unjust taxa- 
tion? By finding it so difficult to live on their 



56 LABOEER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

wages that they are unable to earn and accumu- 
late but little valuable wealth on which to pay 
directly any kind of taxes- Live human flesh 
ought to be the most precious material existing 
under a democratic form of government instead 
of the least so. 

Is labor a commodity ? I should not so clas- 
sify it. 

Why not? Because labor is a force of the 
mind and body and should not be classified with 
inanimate things. 

75 labor valuable? It is not. Why not? For 
the reason that if labor were valuable, it could 
be used in the pawn-shop as an asset on which 
to borrow money or some other valuable thing. 

Do you mean to say that a naked laborer has 
no " pur chasing -power"? I do; if he does not 
own some valuable thing. 

Can't I agree to go to work for an employer 
and at the end of the day receive some valuable 
thing in payment ivhich will then give me "pur- 
chasing-power"? You can; but you don't have 
the "purchasing-power" until the thing is in 
your possession or the employer supplies you 
with some kind of an order. P'ropertyless la- 
borers have great "contracting power," but 
they have no "purchasing-power" unless they 
own something valuable. 

Does labor become valuable when it finds a 
market? It does not. It is only when a laborer 
has rendered some service or added value to 
some particular thing or things, by making them 
more useful or desirable, that he receives his 



LABOBEB AND THE TAX-PAYER 57 

wages or "purchasing-power." The laborer 
must generally annex value to the thing he is 
working on, before he receives in exchange any 
value or "purchasing-power" in the form of 
money or wages; and he almost invariably re- 
ceives less in value than the quantity of value he 
has added to the thing he has been working on. 

Has labor value, when the laborer is a slave? 
The laborer is valuable, when treated as a slave, 
to his owner ; but as slavery is an unnatural con- 
dition, it should not be tolerated in any just state 
of society. Labor in itself is not and never can 
be valuable, where each man has the right to use 
himself, limited only by the legal and natural 
rights of others. 

Is labor wealth? It is. 

Why so? Because it can be used or utilized. 

What quality can be truthfully attributed to 
labor? Utility or usefulness. 

What is the logical definition of labor? 
1 ' Labor is any legal effort to obtain an income. ' ' 

Why is the word "legal" inserted in the defi- 
nition of labor? To signify that no labor should 
be permitted of which the people have not duly 
and regularly approved. 

What do you mean by income? That the thing 
or things given to the laborer for his services, 
will enable the laborer to exercise "purchasing- 
power" and thereby satisfy his wants or gratify 
his desires. Income is an abbreviation of the 
phrase ( i incoming-purchasing-power. ' ' 

Would not a robber, while stealing things, be 
engaged in getting an income under your defini- 



58 LABOEEE AND THE TAX-PAYER 

tion? He would not, if robbery were pro- 
nounced illegal by the people. 

Is not your definition too extensive? It is not. 
Why not? Because every citizen should be per- 
mitted to freely engage in rendering any legal 
service he desires to the people, and the people 
should be permitted to estimate the importance 
of the service rendered, by the quantity of 
patronage or "purchasing-power" they are will- 
ing to bestow on the worker in exchange for his 
services. All competent persons should, at all 
times, be permitted to freely make legal con- 
tracts. The people by this freedom to make 
legal contracts, can justly express their desire 
or need for actors, doctors, lawyers, ministers, 
authors, carpenters, shoemakers, draymen, mer- 
chants, etc., by the " purchasing-power' ' or in- 
come received by these classes from whoever 
patronizes such laborers, and in this manner 
avoid all unjust discrimination against any legal 
laborer; leaving as a result the workfleld, freely 
open, to ail desiring to serve the people. Is the 
possession of great quantities of valuable 
wealth creditable to its owners in this one hun- 
dred and thirty-eighth year of the American Re- 
public's existence? It is not generally. 

Why not? Because the great majority of the 
owners of valuable wealth in this country are 
tax dodgers, money-cornerers, or vote buyers. 

How would the valuable wealth of this country 
be distributed if tax-dodging, money-cornering , 
and vote-buying were stopped? It would gener- 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 59 

ally be in the possession of intelligent and in- 
dustrious workmen or laborers. 

Why so? Because the intelligent and indus- 
trious laborer, under a just order of society, 
would be the person who could pay the ' ' two per 
cent people's rent" on the highest valuation of 
the greatest quantity of the people's valuable 
wealth. 

What does an American citizen 7 s lack of val- 
uable wealth generally prove? In some cases it 
proves that he is indolent, shiftless, or extrava- 
gant; but in the majority of cases, under our 
present organization of society, which enables 
unscrupulous and enterprising persons to un- 
justly accumulate enormous fortunes, it shows 
that the poor have been less selfish and wicked 
and more generous than their more opulent 
brethren. 

What is tv ages? A laborer's wages is the 
"purchasing power" he exercises as the result 
of his ownership of the things he receives for his 
services, whether working for himself or an- 
other. How many kinds of ivages are there? 
Two. Real wages and legal wages. 

What are real wages? A laborer's real wages 
is that quantity of utility or usefulness taken 
from the products of his labor, which he himself 
enjoys or consumes. 

Can yon illustrate by example? Yes. If a 
laborer raises 100 bushels of wheat on some land 
and pays four bushels or their equivalent in 
value, to the government as a satisfaction of the 
People's Annual Rent, and then eats or con- 



60 LABOBEE AND THE TAX-PAYEE 

sumes the remaining 96 bushels, the part that he 1 
has eaten or consumed is his Eeal Wages, viz., | 
the 96 bushels of wheat. 

What are Legal Wages? A laborer's Legal I 
Wages is that part of the "purchasing-power" 1 
received as a reward for his services, which he I 
has left, after he has used or devoured a part in 
consumption. 

Can you illustrate by an example ? Yes. If a I 
workman raises 100 bushels of wheat and gives I 
four bushels to the government in satisfaction of I 
the People's Eent and eats fifty bushels, he has 1 
46 bushels left. These forty-six bushels are his I 
Legal Wages and he has a right to consume (but I 
not to wastefully destroy), sell, or assign the 
forty-six bushels to another for something else, I 
which he may wish to use, consume, or enjoy. 

Who owns the Legal Wages? The laborer I 
who made or produced them, subject to tbe j 
higher ownership of the people, who have the 
right to take the forty- six bushels, at any time, 
upon compensating the laborer for his services 
in producing the forty- six bushels ; after giving 
him his day in court; reasonable compensation 
for the property taken, and proceeding, accord- 
ing to due process of law, to establish the value 
of the forty- six bushels of wheat. 

If a iv or Jeer or laborer raising 100 bushels of 
wheat annually on a piece of land, were required 
to give to a private individual 60 bushels in the 
form of rent, what should the forty bushels left \ 
be called? Wages. Supposing the laborer in \ 
this case ate 10 bushels of his forty bushels, and \ 



LABOREK AND THE TAX-PAYER 61 

kept the remaining 30 bushels of his forty 
bushels, what would you call each? 

The ten bushels eaten would be the laborer's 
Real Wages, and the thirty bushels saved, would 
be his Legal Wages. Such a laborer would be a 
CAPITALIST to the extent that the ownership 
of the 30 bushels conferred on him "purchasing- 
power. ' ' 

What do Legal Wages in the possession of a 
laborer show, provided he has paid the People's 
Rent or two per cent tax annually, on the full 
value of his property, including his Legal 
Wages? That the laborer has produced some 
useful thing or things out of the people's prop- 
erty, the desire for which on the part of the 
people, is expressed in the value of the thing or 
tilings made by the laborer. Legal Wages in the 
possession of a laborer, evinces that the people 
have no just right to take from the laborer his 
Legal Wages without paying him for the labor 
expended in producing the Legal Wages, as 
determined by the value of the things produced. 

Is a doctor, lawyer, or minister a laborer? 
Yes ; whenever he is engaged in a legal effort to 
Dbtain an income. 

Could any man justly earn legal wages suffi- 
cient to equal the value of a million U. S. dol- 
lars? He could. 

In what iv ay? By rendering a service to the 
)eople for which they would be willing to pay 
lim, as compensation, the equivalent in value of 
i million of dollars. 



62 INDUSTBIAL BLOOD 

Can you illustrate how? Yes. A man might 
invent and construct a flying machine at a cost 
of one dollar a piece, and then sell a million or 
two at two dollars each : in this manner he could 
honestly and legally earn a million of dollars or 
even more. 

LESSON IX. 
INDUSTEIAL BLOOD 

What is money? I will not undertake to de- 
fine money. I can only at present refer you to 
samples of it. A French franc, an English sov- 
ereign, a German thaler, a Eussian ruble, an 
American dollar, a Spanish peseta, etc., are each 
species of money. I shall however attempt to 
define and explain what a United States dollar 
ought to be, in order to effect no injustice to any 
party to a contract concerning dollars, and to 
make it impossible for any private individual, 
owning either a large or small sum of money, to 
restrict in any manner, trading, producing, or 
manufacturing throughout the United States, by 
' ' cornering ' ' the supply of money. 

Of what material should a United States dol- 
lar be composed? It should be composed of 
some convenient and abundant material having 
little value, and it should not be liable to be 
scarce or to be needed badly, at any time, in the 
arts or trades. 

Why so? For the reason that when the ma 
terial out of which dollars are made, is needed 
badly to make some other useful article, the 
manufacturers of said articles are prone to melt 



INDUSTKIAL BLOOD 63 

up or macerate said dollars, in order to obtain 
the material composing them, for use in their art 
or trade. For instance : if dollars are made out 
of copper and the supply of copper out of which 
to make copper-valves is scarce, manufacturers 
of copper-valves will be disposed to convert the 
copper dollars into copper-valves, and thereby 
make the remaining copper dollars in circula- 
tion less in supply, and so great in value, that 
the prices of commodities will generally fall, 
when measured by said dollars; even though 
the conversion of the copper dollars into copper 
valves is very expensive to said manufacturers. 

Is this true of other metals or material, such 
as iron, nickel, paper, gold, silver, etc? It is, 
and consequently no gold, copper or paper dol- 
lar should have as much gold, copper or paper in 
its composition as will equal the quantity of 
gold, copper or paper that can be bought in the 
open market, for a legally coined dollar. 

According to your reasoning, a gold dollar 
containing only one legal cent's worth of gold, as 
sold by the goldsmith, would make a better and 
more serviceable dollar than a gold dollar com- 
posed of one hundred legal cents' worth of gold? 
It would, provided the dollar containing the one 
cent's worth of gold were not too small for con- 
venient handling. 

Then you must believe that a dollar composed 
of paper will make the best dollar, on the theory 
that the quantity of paper used in the composi- 
tion of a paper dollar, would never be employed 
to make up any deficiency in the supply of paper 




64 INDUSTEIAL BLOOD 

used by those manufacturers who are making 
boohs, tubs, pails, or any other article out of 
paper? I do; provided that the paper dollars 
are sufficiently protected from counterfeiting, 
and that their supply is so regulated, that the 
owners of paper dollars are not enabled to ham- 
per trade and enterprise, by increasing the sup- 
ply of paper dollars when said owners of paper 
dollars had something to sell, or by decreasing 
the supply when said owners desire to purchase 
something; and in this manner get something 
for little or nothing. 

Could the present exchanges and enterprises 
of society be conducted without government is- 
sued dollars? They could (but rather awk- 
wardly) if everyone in society kept his or her 
promise and everyone believed in everyone 
else's promise. 

How could exchanges be conducted tuithout 
government issued dollars? By each competent 
contractor issuing a piece of paper signed by 
himself, which stated the number of days he 
would work for the bearer or legal owner of the 
piece of "signed paper.' ' 

But if private individuals were to issue such 
pieces of paper, ivould there not be much confu- 
sion and dissatisfaction in society? There 
would. 

Why so? Because, when the signers of said 
pieces of paper died or disappeared, there would 
be no one to fulfill the promises ; and some of the 
promissors might dishonestly issue more of the 
"promises of days' work" written on paper, 



INDUSTKIAL BLOOD 65 

than those which they could or would be willing 
to perform. This would have a tendency to con- 
stantly decrease the value of such "promises on 
paper/ ' and this decrease in value would dis- 
courage many persons in their efforts to possess 
and save such "promises of day's work," or to 
engage in various useful enterprises with their 
assistance : besides, unnecessarily inciting spec- 
ulation. 

Should the scarcity of dollars ever be per- 
mitted to limit industrial enterprises of any 
kind? They should not. 

Why not? Because new valuable dollars can 
be issued by a truly republican government as 
long as they are necessary, provided they are 
composed of paper and the supply of the dollars 
is regulated by an intelligent public servant (a 
secretary of the treasury of the U. S. controlled 
by Perpetual Voting) of the people, in accord- 
ance with the ' Labor Unit" hereinafter ex- 
p]ained. 

Is not the value of such an abundant material 
as paper too low to ansiver the purpose of a dol- 
lar which can perform all the functions of 
money? It is not. 

Why not? Because the lower the value of a 
convenient material, out of which dollars are 
made, the less disposed will men, who are manu- 
facturing articles of utility out of that con- 
venient material or paper, be, to use said con- 
venient material or paper dollars for other than 
money purposes, in order to obtain the small 



66 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

quantity of convenient material or paper used in 
the composition of said dollars. 

Can you illustrate by an example? Yes. If 
some manufacturer were making boxes, books, 
or pails, out of paper, and it cost the U. S. gov- 
ernment one mill to buy the paper composing a 
IT. S. paper dollar, and if about 99 per cent of 
the value of the paper dollar were due to the 
enactment of law, no paper box, book, or pail 
manufacturer could afford to take the one mill's 
worth of paper, composing the paper dollar, and 
convert it into paper boxes, books, or pails; for 
the reason that the paper boxes, books, or pails 
would not sell for enough money to compensate 
the manufacturer for his loss of about 99 per 
cent of the value, in the dollar, due to the law, in 
order to gain a quantity of paper which could 
be bought in the paper-market for one-tenth of a 
cent. 

7s the same reasoning true of gold? It is. 

Why so? Because if a gold dollar were com- 
posed of a quantity of gold which could be pur- 
chased in an uncoined state in the open market 
for one legal copper cent and about 99 per cent 
of the value of such a gold dollar depended on 
the "legal tender power" invested in said gold 
dollar, by law, no goldsmith or other manufac- 
turer would melt up such a gold dollar, in order 
to obtain approximately one-fourth of a grain 
of gold ; but he would, in preference, buy a quan- 
tity of uncoined gold in the open gold-market 
with a coined gold dollar or some other legal 
dollar, which quantity of gold would excel 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 67 

greatly, in value and in quantity, the (about one- 
fourth of a grain of gold) quantity of gold con- 
tained in the coined gold dollar, when melted or 
reduced to bullion. 

Why do you know that a convenient material 
having very little value answers the purposes of 
" dollar material" better than any other sub- 
stance high in value and comprising very little 
bidk? For the reason that if any U. S. dollar 
contains as much or nearly as much of any metal 
or other material as can be purchased in the 
open market for a dollar, whenever manufac- 
turers or money-speculators, abroad or at home, 
needed the material used in the composition of 
the U. S. dollar, the foreign or domestic manu- 
facturers or speculators would melt up or 
macerate said U. S. dollars for the purpose of 
converting the material composing them, into 
some article, for which the speculators or manu- 
facturers require the material, every time the 
material used in the composition of said dollar 
becomes sufficiently scarce to make its value 
high enough to induce the melting up or macera- 
tion of said U. S. dollars. With a cent's worth, 
or less, of any convenient material made into a 
dollar, by law, the value of that material would 
have to go very high, before any foreign or do- 
mestic manufacturer or speculator could afford 
to destroy 99 per cent of the "purchasing 
power" or value in the dollar, due to the fiat of 
the government or the people, in order to obtain 
one cent's worth of said material. Conse- 
quently, the less the value of any material used 



68 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

in the composition of a dollar, the more probable 
is said dollar to be kept at home, in this nation, 
for the purpose of transacting American domes- 
tic business ; thereby tending to keep the dollar 
supply in the home-country sufficiently large to 
meet all demands, with much less liability to 
fluctuation in value or " purchasing-power, ' ' 
than would be the case were the material com- 
posing the U. S. dollar equal in value to the 
quantity of the same material, which could be 
bought in the open market with a legal dollar. 

No sensible person or government would use 
sixteen ounces of gold to make a pound-weight 
when sixteen ounces of iron would better answer 
the purpose. 

Do not the advocates of the "gold standard" 
affirm that the only dollar which is an "honest 
dollak" is that which is composed of a hundred 
cents' ivorth of gold? They do ; but they do not 
know what they are talking about, when they 
make such an assertion; or else they are delib- 
erate fabricators. 

Why do they not? Because when they talk 
about "one hundred cents' worth" they must 
have reference to one hundred "gold cents" and 
as no one ever saw a gold cent, they certainly do 
not talk rationally when they discuss a cent 
which no one has ever seen. 

Might they not refer to United States cents 
composed of 95 per cent copper and 5 per cent tin 
and zinc? If they did they would still be irra- 
tional, because the material out of which one 
hundred copper-tin-and-zinc cents is made by 



INDUSTEIAL BLOOD 69 

the II. S. government, can generally be pur- 
chased as bullion, in the open market or junk- 
shop, for less than ten legal copper- tin- and- zinc 
U. S. cents. 

Have you any other reason for asserting that 
paper is the best material out of which this gov- 
ernment can make a legal U. S. dollar? I have. 
What is itf If this government were to make its 
dollars exclusively out of paper, it would be very 
difficult, in fact impossible, for any private indi- 
vidual or clique of individuals to " corner " the 
paper-supply on the government, which is the 
agent of the people, with the same ease that 
gold, silver, copper, or any other metal, can be 
cornered. Paper can be made out of so many 
abundant materials that it can never be cor- 
nered by private individuals, so effectually, as 
to interfere with the supply of paper which the 
government might want for money issuing pur- 
poses. 

What effect has the "cornering" on a govern- 
ment, of the material out of which its dollars are 
made? It prevents the government from obtain- 
ing sufficient of the material with which to in- 
crease the supply of dollars, in order to meet an 
increased demand for money brought about by 
the "locking up'' of dollars by bankers and pri- 
vate owners ; or by an increase in business or of 
the country's population; and, therefore, makes 
it impossible for the government to keep its dol- 
lars at an unvarying quantity of value. 

How should a government regulate the supply 
of its dollars? It should so issue its dollars that 



70 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

when the demand for dollars is great, the supply 
of dollars would be great, and when the demand 
for dollars is small, the supply of dollars would 
be small. It should also keep the number of dol- 
lars in circulation at such an amount that the 
value of dollars would always be substantially 
the same, whether the demand for them was 
great or small ; so that it would at all times re- 
quire the same average quantity of labob to 
obtain a dollar. 

Would not dollars naturally go up in value, if 
the demand for them were increased? Not if the 
supply of dollars was increased fast enough to 
meet the demand. 

What other purpose should a government, is- 
suing dollars, have in view? It should so issue 
its dollars and so withdraw them from circula- 
tion, that any competent laborer with valuable 
assets, or who is willing to work, would never be 
obliged to abandon any industrial enterprise, 
which would be a benefit to society, on account 
of his inability to obtain dollars. 

What other policy should a government strive 
to pursue with regard to issuing money or dol- 
lars? It should aim to have its dollars always 
come out through the hands of manual laborers 
who had rendered a service to the government 
by performing manual work, except when the 
government calls in whatever bonds it desires, 
in order to replace them with dollars, when at- 
tempting to prevent a " money corner. " 

Should a republican form of government at 
any time issue any hind of bonds? Yes. It 



INDUSTEIAL BLOOD 71 

should issue bouds (exempt from taxation be- 
cause the bonds will be a special part of the 
Just Money system) of small denominations 
paying two per cent annual interest, and in 
whatever amount the people wanted them. 

For what reason? To provide the people with 
a safe investment into which to place their sav- 
ings and at the same time to enable the govern- 
ment to rapidly increase the supply of dollars in 
circulation, by calling in bonds and paying them 
off at any time in order to counteract any * ' cor- 
ner" in money that may be attempted on the 
part of "financial sharps," who desire to in- 
crease the value of dollars circulating among 
the people and thereby reduce generally the 
prices of commodities. 

Does raising the rate of discount or interest 
charged for the use of money or lowering it, as 
is the practice of the Bank of England, regulate 
the supply of money in a manner that best meets 
the requirements of trade? It does not. 

Why not? Because the Bank of England 
raises its rate of interest at a time the people 
are withdrawing their deposits for the purpose 
of meeting the increased demands of trade. 
That is, when the necessity for money is in- 
creasing as shown in the withdrawal of deposits, 
the bank increases the rent for money and there- 
by increases the necessity for it ; instead of re- 
lieving the strain, as would be its duty were it 
a public institution. Money should not be con- 
sidered in the same class with vegetables, whose 
price is high when their supply is scarce and 



72 INDUSTEIAL BLOOD 

whose price is low when the supply is plentiful : 
dollars are an artificial construction, designed 
to measure value and facilitate exchange; just 
as pound-weights measure the weight of bodies 
and facilitate exchange. 

Does such a government as the United States 
ever require credit from any private individual? 
It does not. 

Why not? Because the government of the 
United States, or any other just government, 
founded on the consent of the people, never 
needs to borrow (that which it already owns) 
from private individuals any of the dollars 
which the government itself has already made 
or can make. Whatever kind of a dollar a just 
republic issues (provided the supply is properly 
regulated), however cheap the material out of 
which the dollars are made, the instant the gov- 
ernment (by exercising its sovereign power, viz., 
"the right to define the right and enforce the 
decision") makes said dollars full-legal-tender 
(that is, decrees that the dollar shall perform all 
the functions possible to any other legal coin or 
dollar, and that the dollar shall be received in 
payment of taxes and all other obligations to 
the government) that instant, the government 
will be independent of all private individuals 
owning money ; and it will not be required to go 
to any private individual and borrow the iden- 
tical dollars which the government itself at some 
former time has issued, or to which it has an- 
nexed its stamp. 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 73 

Which is the more powerful and permanent: a 
private individual or a just government? The 
just government when it is founded on the con- 
sent of the people. 

Why then does a great and powerful govern- 
ment, like the United States, ask credit (which 
is time in which to return to the owner some use- 
ful or valuable thing, ivhich has been bought by 
the purchaser or borrowed by the bailor or bor- 
rower, either with or without compensation for 
the use of the thing bought or borrowed) from 
any private individual either for dollars or any- 
thing else, when the U. S. Government has the 
highest title to all the real and personal prop- 
erty in this country? Because it serves the pur- 
poses of the vote-buying, tax-dodging and 
money-cornering classes, to instil in the minds 
of the people, with the assistance of some pupils, 
some schools, many colleges, newspapers and 
magazines, the false and erroneous idea, that a 
just and powerful government, resting on the 
will of the people, can not issue a valuable dol- 
lar, unless said dollar at some time or another 
is exchanged for the gold or silver owned by 
private individuals. 

Is this true? It is not true. 

Why is it not true? For the reason that a 
government founded on the consent of the peo- 
ple and truly representing their wishes, has 
the legal and natural right to take for public 
use, any piece of private property, either real or 
personal, that it requires at any time, provided 
the owner of the private property is justly com- 



74 INDUSTEIAL BLOOD 

pensated therefor by the receipt of legal dollars 
issued in payment by the government; and 
which are equivalent in value to the value of 
the property taken. 

On what is this just and natural principle 
founded? On the theory that the welfare of the 
people is of greater importance than the welfare 
of any private individual or clique of individ- 
uals, when regularly and duly judged by the 
people, in the exercise of their sovereignty, 
through their agent the Government of the U. S. 
or any of its subordinate parts. 

Is this principle founded on any other theory? 
Yes. On the theory that the highest ownership 
of all real and personal property is vested in the 
whole people of a nation, when dealing with the 
property within the domain of said nation. 

Hoiv ivould a government like the United 
States redeem its dollars without using any kind 
of private individuaVs property? By simply re- 
ceiving its dollars in payment of the people's 
two per cent rent or annual tax. The knowledge 
on the part of the people that the United States 
government will receive any particular material 
or any particular form of material, in payment 
of its taxes or People's Eent, creates a demand 
for that material. As everything scarce and for 
which there is a demand, is always valuable and 
has "purchasing power," or confers "purchase 
ing-power" on its owner, everyone directly 
or indirectly indebted to the government, will 
want that scarce thing which pays taxes or pub- 
lic rent. 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 75 

Would the receipt of a particular material in 
payment of taxes or public rent be a sufficient 
redemption of any dollar issued by this govern- 
ment or any other true republic? It would. 

Why so? Because a truly republican govern- 
ment is the agent of the whole people, and it 
stands in the position of a "perpetual claimant' ' 
for the payment of the two per cent annual rent, 
due from every private owner of the people's 
real and personal property. If the private 
owner or user of any real or personal property 
pays this year's annual two per-cent-rent, he 
will, later, be required to pay next year's two 
per-cent-rent, and then the following year's rent 
after that, etc. It is in the nature of things that 
many people will always want, more or less, and 
consequently will give something valuable for 
whatever the government receives in payment 
of public taxes or the People's Rent. This rela- 
tion, between the government and the people, 
who are the sovereigns having the "right to 
define the right and enforce the decision," en- 
ables the former to create ' ' purchasing power ' ' 
by simply receiving whatever it will, in payment 
of taxes or the People's Rent. When the gov- 
ernment pays the material, so received, out for 
services, and the recipient then spends it and 
receives what he desires to eat or wear in ex- 
change for it, the material is then redeemed in 
the manner that the private and subordinate 

OWNERS OF GOLD OR SILVER DESIRE TO HAVE THEIR 

gold or silver redeemed, in order to keep the 



76 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

"purchasing-power" of the owners of the white 
and yellow metals artificially great. 

What is the effect of the government's invest- 
ing a certain form of material (already being 
received in payment of taxes) with the power to 
discharge debts, the power to stop (by tender) 
the running of interest on debts, and the power, 
to impose the i( costs of court" on the creditor 
ivho refuses to receive said material in payment 
of debts ? The value of the material so received 
is greatly increased by investing it with these 
additional powers. 

lesson x. 

MAKKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

Is money an essential and convenient institu- 
tion as society is now organized? It is. What 
important function of money is only meagerly 
understood by the people? Its function of ena- 
bling the owners of valuable things, the em- 
ployers of laborers, and the laborers themselves, 
to make whatever exchanges desired, with great 
economy of time and labor. 

Bo the private owners of money ever inter- 
fere with the owners of other valuable things 
than money, ivhen the latter wish to make ex- 
changes? They frequently do. 

Ho iv so? By hoarding their money or by ex- 
acting unjust rent for the use of it, from the 
traders in, or the producers or manufacturers 
of useful things. Can you explain further? 
Yes. When a laborer wishes to trade a valuable 
product of his labor for the valuable product of 



MAKKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 77 

some other laborer, in society, as now organized, 
he, generally, first is obliged to sell his labor- 
prodnct to a man owning money (called a mer- 
chant or speculator), who rarely gives the la- 
borer enough value in the form of money, to 
equal the value of the labor-product, less a rea- 
sonable profit (plus transportation and other 
reasonable expenses), which can be justly 
charged by the money-owner or merchants. As 
a consequence, the laborer receives too small a 
quantity of value in money for the product he 
sells. Whenever the laborer has given his labor- 
product for money and then desires to buy with 
his money a valuable article to use, the owner 
(his representative, or middle man) of the ar- 
ticle which the laborer desires to purchase, ex- 
torts too much value in the form of money from 
the laborer, before the laborer is permitted to 
satisfy his want, by obtaining the article de- 
sired. Thus it is, that the laborer is generally 
plucked when he sells and plucked when he 
buys, by the owner of money. This explains the 
expression: "Skinned going and coming." 

Can you give another example showing how 
useful money is in effecting exchanges and fa- 
cilitating industrial enterprises? I can. 

What is it? It is the experience of a small 
village on the Isle of Guernsey in the English 
Channel. The inhabitants of this village wished 
to build a public market and the village board 
passed a resolution ordering the erection of such 
a building; but the board discovered that the 
edifice would cost £4,000 in money and as the 



78 MAEKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

village had no funds, a resolution authorizing 
the borrowing of that sum at six per cent inter- 
est was about to be passed, when the president 
of the board asked : "Is there not stone enough 
in neighbor Thomas Doyle's quarry to construct 
the foundation of the proposed market?' ' Sev- 
eral members of the board answered, "There 
is." "Hasn't Charles A. Grant," again in- 
quired the president, ' ' the brickmaker in our vil- 
lage, a plant with which he can supply all the 
bricks we shall need in the building?" Again 
was the reply affirmative. 

"Hasn't Alfred Urfer, the farmer who lives 
a few miles out from the village, enough sea- 
soned timber to supply all the wood that will be 
required?" The answer again was a number 
of "Yesses." "Hasn't E. L. Kinloch, the lime 
and cement dealer, all the other building ma- 
terial we may need for the purpose of construct- 
ing this building?" A dozen asserted he had. 
"Haven't we a number of carpenters, masons, 
plumbers, painters, etc., in our town, who are 
prepared to render the kind of services we shall 
need in the erection of this structure?" As 
usual, the reply was affirmative. "Now it ap- 
pears to me," continued the president, "that if 
we have the laborers and the materials neces- 
sary to erect the market, in our village or its 
vicinity, there is no reason why we cannot pro- 
ceed to build immediately. ' ' 

"But," objected a member of the village- 
board, "we must first find some person who will 
lend us the necessary amount of money. ' ' 



MAEKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 79 

"Listen!" rejoined the president. "If this 
village board will authorize me to issue £4,000 
of paper script on which shall be printed : ' This 
paper script shall be received in payment of 
rent for the use of any room or store in the pub- 
lic market, ' I will undertake to put up the build- 
ing without borrowing a single pound of money 
from any private individual or banking cor- 
poration." 

What next occurred? A resolution was 
promptly passed authorizing the president to 
issue the script, and to proceed at once with the 
erection of the market. The president there- 
upon consulted the quarryman, brickmaker, lum- 
berman, lime and cement-dealer, masons, car- 
penters, plumbers, painters, etc., and learned 
that all were willing to take the paper script in 
payment, for either services or material; be- 
cause the village board had agreed to receive the 
script in payment of rent for the use of the 
rooms and stores, which were intended to form 
a part of the market. Some of the village mer- 
chants dealing in food, clothing, hardware, etc., 
eagerly announced, that they would take, at the 
face amount, the script in payment for their 
merchandise, for the reason that they intended 
to hire stores in the building, when it was com- 
pleted, and as tenants they would use the script 
received in exchange for their merchandise, to 
pay the rent which would be due to the landlord 
of the public market, who was the president, 
acting as agent for the town board. These mer- 
chants had no hesitation in telling the mechanics 



80 MAEKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

and material men that the script would be useful 
to purchase anything in their stores. 

The president next hired an architect, a num- 
ber of masons, carpenters, plumbers, painters, 
etc., and bought a quantity of stone, bricks, lum- 
ber, mortar, etc. With the paper script he paid 
the mechanics each Saturday night; and the 
material men, when their material had been de- 
livered. 

Within a few months the market was com- 
pleted, the rooms and stores occupied, and the 
script, which the president had paid out com- 
menced to return to him in the form of rent. 
After a year or two, all the £4,000 which had 
been issued (except a very small percentage 
which had been lost or destroyed) came into 
the hands of the president, who thereupon called 
a meeting of the village board. 

When the members were all in their seats and 
the space allotted to spectators crowded, the 
president asked: "Is there any material-man, 
present or not present, who holds any unpaid 
bill against the village for material furnished 
in the construction of this public market, in 
which we are now meeting f " A deadly silence 
took possession of the assemblage. 

"Is there any mechanic, architect, laborer, or 
anyone else, present or not present, who has an 
unpaid claim for services rendered in construct- 
ing this public market ? ' ' Again no one replied. 

"I don't think there is," volunteered the 
president, "because I have a receipted bill, now 
in my possession, for every service rendered or 



MAEKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 81 

material bought, during the erection of this edi- 
fice; but in order to avoid a possible mistake, 
I am making this public inquiry for any claim 
that might be outstanding. Evidently all bills 
have been paid, and as I have the £4,000 of paper 
script (excepting a very small percentage which 
has been lost or destroyed) now in my hands, 
and as the public market is paying the village a 
good net revenue, I wish to announce that the 
taxes on all village property hereafter will be 
lower. We shall now proceed to enjoy a con- 
flagration. ' ' 

The president then placed the script, which 
had been paid in as rent by the merchants occu- 
pying the stores, etc., in a tin pan, struck a 
match, and applied its flame to the paper money. 
The village board and spectators then saw the 
paper script, which had enabled the village to 
build its market; to give employment to many 
mechanics and trade to merchants ; and to effect 
all kinds of exchanges in so doing; pass off in 
flame and smoke. 

What does this experience of the village board 
show? It shows that the paper script was sim- 
ply "pukchasing powek" issued in a convenient 
form, which enabled the laborers, mechanics and 
material men, engaged in the construction of the 
building, to exchange the "purchasing power' ' 
they had put into the public market for other 
forms of "purchasing power," such as food, 
clothing, shelter, etc., without consulting the 
private owners of gold, silver, copper, or any 
other kind of money. 



82 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

Can you make this Isle of Guernsey transac- 
tion any clearer? I can. What the village 
board required as soon as they had decided to 
erect a public market was "purchasing power/ ' 
in some convenient form, which would enable 
the laborers and material men to exchange the 
"purchasing power" they proposed to put into 
the market while it was in building, for the 
"purchasing power" in the possession of the 
owners of bread, meat, coats, hats, shoes, cigars, 
etc., because of such ownership. The issuance 
of the paper script, on the part of the village 
which had a title, higher than that of any pri- 
vate individual, to all the property within the 
boundaries of the village, brought into being the 
necessary "purchasing power" which enabled 
the enterprise to be carried to a successful 
finish. Because the village board was capable 
of performing its contract, the merchants who 
expected to occupy stores in the public-market 
were willing to accept the paper script and give 
valuable things in exchange for it, on account of 
their knowledge that the script would have value 
or confer "purchasing power" on its owners, 
when paying for the use of the rooms and stores 
in the market. When the board pledged itself, 
by resolution, to receive the script in payment 
of rent, it exercised its natural right to create 
"purchasing power" or valuable money, and 
thereby supplied itself with capital. Whatever 
article or material any creditor agrees to receive 
in payment of debts or other enforcible obliga- 
tions, immediately becomes valuable and enables 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 83 

the owner to exercise "purchasing power,' ' if 
the creditor is responsible. This is particularly 
true of justly organized republican govern- 
ments. 

Then the paper script ivas simply "purchas- 
ing power" orought into being by a resolution- 
of the village board? Exactly. Just as a rich 
man can bring into being "purchasing power" 
by issuing a promissory note, which promises to 
pay or deliver coal, wood, meat, sugar, dollars, 
bonds, etc., to the payee ; or which the rich man 
is willing to take in satisfaction of any of the 
claims he holds against his debtors. 

What is the difference between "purchasing 
power" brought into being by a nation and that 
brought into being by an individual? The possi- 
bility of a nation's "purchasing power" ever 
passing away is extremely remote, because it 
owns everything within the domain of the na- 
tion; but the probability of an individual's 
"purchasing power" passing away, becomes a 
certainty when he loses title to his valuable 
property or at his death, when his ownership of 
all real and personal property terminates. 

What is the difference between a negotiable 
promissory note issued by an individual and the 
paper script issued by the village board? In law, 
the negotiable promissory note of an individual 
(which promises to pay money) must ultimately 
be paid in money in order to be valuable and to 
be redeemed ; just as a bill of lading, in order to 
be valuable and to be redeemed, must be ulti- 
mately exchanged for merchandise. But the 



84 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

script issued by the village board, required no 
redemption in money or merchandise by the vil- 
lage, only in so far as it was redeemed when 
passing from hand to hand, in exchange for 
valuable commodities. The simple fact that the 
merchants could pay their rent for the use of 
valuable property to their landlord (the village 
board) with the script, made the paper script 
valuable; and because the script was valuable, 
it passed current in the village and enabled all 
persons receiving the script, who had claims for 
valuable material built into the market, or for 
services rendered by adding to the value of the 
market, to exchange the valuable script for 
other valuable things such as groceries, cloth- 
ing, etc. 

Was this paper script issued by the village 
board capital? Yes. It was capital in a very 
convenient form. 

Could the village board have built another 
market by issuing more script? They could. 
But if they built too many markets and thereby 
increased the supply of markets beyond the de- 
mand for them, merchants would not give much 
rent for stores in some of the markets. There 
is a limit beyond which the building of markets 
or the issuance of paper script should not be 
carried. 

What is that limit? I shall explain that in a 
subsequent lesson. 

Could the village board have built a railroad, 
in the same manner? They could, if the rail- 
road were not too large to be handled with the 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 85 

quantity of "purchasing power" conferred on 
the village board, by their ownership of all the 
real and personal property in the village. 

Then what this government of the United 
States requires more than anything else is a 
convenient form of "purchasing power" which 
can not be selfishly controlled or "cornered" by 
private individuals? That is exactly it. And 
when this government had a greater supply per 
capita of convenient "purchasing power' ' (al- 
though an important part of it was deliberately 
crippled, in the interest of the banking class, by 
the insertion of the "exception clause") than 
what it has now, as it did in "war times," the 
laborers in this country enjoyed, generally, the 
most prosperity they ever did before or since; 
notwithstanding that the money "cornerers," 
tax dodgers and vote buyers of Wall Street and 
similar places, affirm that the "good times" dur- 
ing the civil war period was a "fictitious pros- 
perity. ' ' 

How ivould the village board have fared had 
they borrowed the £4,000 at 6 per cent from 
private individuals? They probably would have 
paid to the lenders enough interest at 6 per cent, 
when compounded four times a year (as the 
bankers do, when lending money to borrowers 
on notes to run for only three months' time) to 
equal, in twenty years, three times the principal, 
and still owe the original amount borrowed. 

Does this Isle of Guernsey transaction evince 
how private individuals, who own and control 
great quantities of money, can interfere with or 



86 MAEKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

obstruct public and private enterprises? It does. 
How so? By refusing to let the village board 
have the use of their privately owned money, on 
any terms whatsoever, the private individuals 
owning money, could have prevented the erec- 
tion of the public market; or by lending their 
money at exorbitant rent or interest for its use, 
they could probably have kept the whole village 
perpetually in debt to money-lenders. But the 
village president's sensible idea enabled the vil- 
lage board to create sufficient "purchasing 
power" in the form of valuable paper script to 
build the market, independent of the desire for 
personal gain on the part of any private indi- 
vidual or clique of individuals. When the script 
had accomplished its purpose, viz., to enable the 
architect, mechanics, and material-men, to effect 
their necessary exchanges, it naturally came 
back to the president, who instead of paying it 
out again, as he could have done, for services 
and material to be used in the construction of 
another public building, burned it up. 

Could the village board in any manner in- 
crease the "purchasing power" of the paper 
script? They could if the general government 
above the village board permitted. 

In what way? By increasing the demand for 
the script. 

Can't you make yourself clearer? When the 
village board agreed to take the script in pay- 
ment of market rent, the script was in vigorous 
demand by only the few merchants who expected 
to occupy rooms and stores in the market. If 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 87 

the village board had agreed to receive the 
script in payment of all village taxes, the de- 
mand for the script by all persons owing the 
village for taxes, or who expected to pay taxes 
to the village at a future time, would have been 
additionally increased. This increase in the 
number of persons desiring to get possession of 
the script, would have made it more valuable 
than when only the few merchants intending to 
occupy rooms and stores in the market desired 
to get it. 

Could the value or "purchasing power" of 
the script have been still further increased? It 
could. How so? By giving the script power to 
discharge debts, to stop the running of interest 
on debts, and to force the payment of the l ' costs 
of court" on all persons, who refused to receive 
the script in payment of debts. 

Could the village board have decreased the 
"purchasing power" or value of the script? It 
could. 

How could it? By increasing the supply of 
script until the supply of script exceeded the 
demand for it. 

7s not this power of creating valuable script 
or dollars too important a prerogative to leave 
to the regulation of such a body as the village 
board? It is. 

Who alone should exercise this important 
power of bringing into being "purchasing 
poiver" in the form of script or dollars? The 
national government, acting as an agent of the 



88 MABKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

whole people, only, and then, subject to the most 
rigorous regulations. 

Was not this script issued by the village board 
simply "credit money"? No: not a particle 
more so than a gold coin containing 24.8 grains 
of gold, standard fine, is credit money, when 
legally issued by this government. The script 
was "purchasing power" actually brought into 
being by the resolution of the village board. 

Can you make yourself clearer? Yes. Credit 
means trusting some one to return a thing bor- 
rowed or its equivalent in value with or without 
compensation. The village board borrowed no 
money, consequently, there was no "credit 
money" whatever in the transaction. When the 
president gave a mason working on the market 
some of the script, as wages, the mason had his 
"purchasing power" in his hands. The mason 
did not agree to return anything to the presi- 
dent; nor did the president agree to give any- 
thing else at a future time to the mason as would 
have been the case in a credit transaction. The 
mason had increased the value or "purchasing 
power" of the owners of the market, by skill- 
fully laying bricks into a wall to form a part of 
the market. For this increase in the value of 
the market, by laying brick on top of bricks, 
in suitable beds of mortar, the president gave 
the mason "purchasing power" in the form of 
paper script; just as the grocer gave to the 
mason "purchasing power" in the form of 
bread, beef, clothing, etc., when the mason ex- 
changed his paper script at the counter of the 



MAEKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 89 

merchant who intended to hire a store in the 
market; and just as the merchant could have 
spent the script for more groceries. Credit 
always implies "time" long or short, in which 
to return something or its equivalent in value 
with or without compensation. The mason did 
not credit the president; nor did the president 
agree to credit the mason with anything. As 
soon as the mason had finished increasing the 
"purchasing power" of the owners of the mar- 
ket, according to the contract, he received back 
"purchasing power" in the form of the paper 
script, which was exchanged at the merchant's 
store for "purchasing power" in the form of 
hats, coats, beef, sugar, etc. The ownership of 
the bricks and mortar built into the market ; the 
ownership of the script given in payment for 
the services of the mechanics; and the owner- 
ship of the food, clothing, etc., given by the mer- 
chants to the mechanics; all alike, conferred 
"purchasing power" on their owners without 
the intervention of any credit whatsoever. 

Then any great government founded on the 
consent of the people and truly representing 
them, can bring into being (i purchasing power" 
at any time? It can as long as the government 
adheres to Truth, Eight and Justice; does not 
over-produce its "purchasing power"; and 
never issues a promise to pay, but only issues 
orders on its own property, which "orders" it 
agrees to receive and honor at all times. 

According to your theory, a government 
might issue too many dollars? It certainly 



90 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

might; because when any government (which 
has the sovereign power to take any property 
for public purposes it pleases, and give there- 
for, in exchange, its own legal tender dollars) 
issues more money than there is a demand for, 
the money depreciates in value, and if enough is 
issued, it may become useless, except for con- 
verting the material of which the money is com- 
posed into some other article of consumption or 
utility. 

Then any great government can always sup- 
ply itself with all the capital or i '- purchasing 
power" it requires with which to employ la- 
borers at any time, if it acts justly and intelli- 
gently? It certainly can. 

Could the U. S. government supply its people 
with a credit system? Most certainly. But the 
credit system should be abolished to the greatest 
extent possible, under our national, state, and 
local governments, and a cash system, which 
would not require the payment of great sums of 
interest to the non-producing class, substituted. 

Why do not great governments exercise this 
power of bringing into being whatever capital 
they may need? In some urgent cases the gov- 
ernments are obliged to, in order to preserve 
themselves; but, generally, because private in- 
dividuals, such as bankers, money-lenders, 
money-cornerers, stock-brokers, vote-buyers, 
etc., by the means of bribing public servants and 
disseminating financial falsehoods among the 
people, prevent them. 



A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 91 

LESSON XI. 
A TKUE UNIT OF VALUE 

How ivould you regulate the issuance of dol- 
lars so that they would not be either too low or 
too high in value or "purchasing power"? I 
would have a Secretary of the Treasury of the 
United States who would be elected directly by 
the voters of the United States and (subject to 
the power of recall under a system of Perpetual 
Voting which I shall hereinafter explain) in 
whom would be vested the absolute power to 
regulate the supply of dollars throughout these 
United States, in accordance with the following 
articles by the late David Beeves Smith : 

"Article 1. On or before the tenth day of 
every month, let every person in the United 
States who employs others, make in writing a 
true statement, on a blank form provided by the 
government for the purpose, of the number of 
persons employed by him during the preceding 
month; the wages per hour paid to each person 
so employed; and the wages paid per hour for 
the same kind of work during the month pre- 
ceding the one above mentioned. On the same 
day, or the day after that on which the said 
written statement is prepared, let it be mailed 
to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United 
States. 

"Article 2. The Secretary of the Treasury 
shall leave out of consideration one-fourth part 
of the number of persons so employed and re- 
ported in the several statements provided for 



92 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

in Article 1st ; which fourth part shall consist of 
those receiving the highest wages per hour; and 
he shall ascertain, as soon as possible, the aver- 
age wages per hour received by the other three- 
fourths part, and shall consider that average to 
have been the average wages per hour of the 
corresponding month, and he shall compare that 
average with the average of the month preced- 
ing that, and thereby ascertain whether wages 
per hour are increasing or decreasing, and at 
what rate per cent ; and on every month there- 
after the Secretary shall in like manner ascer- 
tain the average of wages per hour and the rate 
of increase or decrease for the preceding month. 
"Article 3. The Secretary shall from time 
to time increase the quantity of money in circu- 
lation, but shall never under any circumstances 
whatever, withdraw from circulation enough to 
decrease the average rate of wages. Whenever 
the Secretary shall observe a decrease in the 
average rate of wages, he shall immediately add 
to the quantity of money in circulation so much 
as shall appear to be required to restore the 
highest average rate of wages that had at any 
time been observed after the first monthly state- 
ments had been made. The purpose which the 
Secretary shall have always in view will be to 
issue just enough currency to prevent the aver- 
age of wages from being for any two consecu- 
tive months below the highest point at any time 
reached; but not enough to cause any greater 
advance in wages, at any time, than shall appear 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 93 

to be necessary or incidental to this method of 
preventing a decline in wages." 

Would not this plan of issuing money place 
too much power in the hands of a single indi- 
vidual? It would, if the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury could not be immediately removed from 
office by the people under said system of Per- 
petual Voting, in case he did anything detri- 
mental to the interests of the people, according 
to their regularly and duly exercised judgment. 

How ivould the Secretary put the money out? 
By establishing Government Employment Sta- 
tions in all cities with a population of 100,000 
or more, at which any person could obtain em- 
ployment at making highways, building post- 
offices, erecting hospitals, school-houses or meet- 
ing-halls, laying out parks, or producing any- 
thing which the National Government or the 
people required, and paying for the services so 
rendered, with full legal tender paper dollars 
issued by the Secretary of the Treasury. 

How much per day or hour should be paid 
the workers given employment at these Govern- 
ment Stations? That would depend on the 
average wages, as shown by the reports sent to 
the Secretary of the Treasury. If the "average 
wages" as determined from the reports were, 
two, three, or four dollars per day, or so much 
per hour (it matters not what the amount), at 
whatever figure the Secretary found "average 
wages," he must keep "average wages" at that 
amount, either by increasing or decreasing the 
supply of money in circulation, and ordering 



94 A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 

more work at increased daily wages or less work 
at decreased daily wages, at the Government 
Stations; or by holding the money in, when it 
came into the treasury by way of taxation or the 
People's Eent. 

Can you make this any clearer? Yes. If five 
hours were to constitute a working-day and five 
dollars a day were the average wages of the not- 
capitalist class (three-fourths class), it would 
take one hour's average work to obtain a dollar; 
and one dollar would command one hour's aver- 
age work at all times. The dollar issued in this 
manner, would be a Unit of Value, and the one 
hour's average work would be a Unit of Labor; 
and each would exchange for the other, in the 
U. S., as long as money was issued according to 
this system. The relative supply of money 
would then always be the same as the relative 
supply of labor. 

Would the prices of apples or any other com- 
modity go up when measured in this just 
money? They would sometimes. As the supply 
of apples or other commodities became scarce, 
and if the demand were not decreased, the 
apples would increase in money-price ; or when 
the supply of apples became plentiful and if the 
demand were not decreased, the money-price of 
apples would go down. 

How is it noiv with the present U. 8. system of 
issuing money, under ivhich private individuals 
and corporations regulate the supply? Some- 
times when the supply of potatoes is plentiful, 
because the supply of money has been increased, 



A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 95 

the money price of potatoes goes up and vice 
versa. 

Would it make any difference at what average 
rate per day the Secretary fixed the ivages? It 
would not, as long as the Secretary kept the 
"average of wages" at that particular figure. 
For instance, it is my personal opinion, that the 
"average of wages" ought to be raised to about 
five dollars per day, in order to supply the peo- 
ple with enough money to easily pay off the 
various forms of indebtedness which have been 
foisted on them by the innumerable "financial 
sharps," which this grabbing age has produced. 
Then, ever after, the Secretary of the Treasury 
should keep the "average of wages" at five 
dollars per day or a certain equivalent amount 
per hour. 

What should the Secretary do when the aver- 
age of wages fell to $4.95 per day? Bring the 
average wages up to $5.00 per day or eighty- 
three and one-third cents per hour (provided 
the working day consisted of six hours daily 
toil) by ordering more work at the Government 
Stations and paying a few more cents per day. 

What should the Secretary do, when the aver- 
age of wages as shown by the reports sent to the 
Secretary of the Treasury by the private em- 
ployers, ivent up to $5.05 per day? Withhold 
money from circulation, by ordering a little less 
work and reducing a few cents per day, the 
wages paid at the Government Stations. 

What should be the constant duty of the Secre- 
tary while watching these reports? To keep the 



96 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

"average rate" of wages of the " three- fourths 
class" at five dollars per day; drawing or hold- 
ing in money, when "average wages" went 
above that figure per day; and putting money 
out by giving more employment at the Govern- 
ment Stations, when the "average wages" fell 
below that figure. 

Would the Secretary ever under this system 
be required to ivithdraw money from circula- 
tion? Not if money cornering or counterfeiting 
could be prevented. 

Why not? Because all money naturally tends 
to contract itself, due in part to the fact, that an 
important fraction of every nation's money is 
lost, hoarded, destroyed, worn out, or locked up. 
On this account, the Secretary's duty would 
generally be to increase the supply of money. 

Would money issued in this manner meet 
either a large or small demand for it? It would 
Why so? For the reason that when money be- 
came scarce, the applicants for work at the Gov- 
ernment Stations would increase; because the 
"average wages" earned away from the Gov- 
ernment Stations, by the employees of private 
employers or by persons working for them- 
selves, would decrease, which decrease would 
send more applicants for work to the Govern- 
ment Stations. This decrease in the "average 
wages" as exhibited in the "monthly reports," 
would warn the Secretary that he must start 
more improvements for the purpose of employ- 
ing more workmen and getting out more money, 
in order to keep up the ' ' average of wages. ' ' If 



A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 97 

the demand for money decreased, there would 
be fewer persons seeking work at the Govern- 
ment Stations. As the Secretary could issue 
paper dollars, by increasing public employment 
or by calling in two per cent bonds, in which 
some of the people would have invested their 
savings, as fast as "money cornerers" or 
bankers locked them up, any scarcity of money, 
shown by the private employers' monthly re- 
ports, in a decreased daily or hourly "average 
of wages," could be immediately met, on the 
part of the Secretary, as the result of putting 
out enough more new money in the manner de- 
scribed, to keep the ' ' average of wages ' ' at the 
particular figure decided upon. 

In this way the demand for money would be 
exactly met, no more, no less. 

What effect ivould this system of issuing 
money have on the "cornerers" of money 
throughout the United States? It would drive 
them out of the "money cornering" business, 
because they would be unable to increase the 
"purchasing-power" of money by decreasing 
the amount in circulation and thereby forcing 
down the prices of commodities as the result of 
the locking up of large or small sums of money. 
Any sum of money locked up in this manner 
could be easily replaced by the Secretary of the 
Treasury. 

Would this system he as good as that em- 
ployed by the Bank of England? It would be 
much better. 

Why so? Because the Bank of England's 



98 A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 

system requires the raising of the rate of inter- 
est charged for the use of money, in order to 
protect its reserves, at a time when people are 
most in need of money and are withdrawing it 
for the purpose of earning greater returns ; and 
it requires the lowering of the rate, at a time 
when the people don't need their money very 
badly and are increasing the Bank of England's 
reserve by depositing their money in the bank. 

Who invented this system of issuing money? 
The late David Eeeves Smith. 

What did he call money so issued and con- 
trolled? "Just Money." " 

Why? Because it is a money which will at all 
times confer on its owners the same quantity of 
"purchasing power"; a money which will sat- 
isfy the demand for it whether great or small ; a 
money which will make it impossible for private 
individual-money-owners to stand in the way of 
the laborer, when he wishes to make some useful 
article; a money, the supply of which, will be 
regulated according to the needs of labor; and 
a money which will rest upon a "Unit of Labor" 
as shown in the monthly reports sent to the 
Secretary of the Treasury. 

7s there any other advantage about Just 
Money? Yes, it would, most generally, come 
out through the hands of a part of the workers 
who constitute the most useful and numerous 
class in society; instead of coming out through 
the hands of the few possessors of special privi- 
lege and great wealth ; as is the case under our 
present banking and financial laws. 



A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 99 

Would money issued and controlled in this 
manner supply the industrious and enterprising 
laborers ivith all the capital they required? It 
would. 

Why so? Because capital is accumulated 
"purchasing-power" and, consequently, when- 
ever competent laborers wished to undertake 
any practical kind of an enterprise, they could 
get all the necessary capital or " purchasing- 
power " they required, while carrying the en- 
terprise to a successful conclusion, provided 
the laborer or laborers had any valuable assets, 
or were willing to go to work at the Government 
Stations and be paid for their services by the 
Secretary of the Treasury . in full legal- tender 
paper dollars, of substantially unvakying value, 
and issued in the manner hereinbefore described. 

How would the industrious laborers be en- 
abled to obtain assets? The Two Per Cent Peo- 
ple's Rent, when collected annually; the Assem- 
bly District Recording Law with its penalty of 
forfeiture in case of failure to record any real 
or personal property; and the Self-Assessment 
Law, which have been heretofore described, will 
reduce all large fortunes and make it impossible 
for anyone to hold out of use any real or per- 
sonal property without paying annually the Peo- 
ple 's Two Per Cent Rent on its full value. When 
these laws are on our national statute books and 
are enforced, industrious and provident labor- 
ers will never be without assets ; and they will 
be, generally, working for themselves, except 



100 A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 

when they can earn higher wages toiling for an 
employer. 

What do you mean by assetsf Any valuable 
real or personal property. 

Why do you affirm that these three laws will, 
generally, diminish big fortunes? Because the 
natural law of Diminishing Eeturns and the col- 
lection of the People's Eent on the full value of 
all real and personal property (with the two ex- 
ceptions heretofore explained) will make it im- 
possible for the present owners of large quanti- 
ties of valuable wealth to hold or own large 
quantities of valuable wealth, without paying the 
People's Eent on its full value, when enterpris- 
ing laborers are willing to pay the govermnent 
the People's Eent or tax, on a higher valuation 
of said property, than that on which any tax 
dodging rich person could pay the Two Per Cent 
Eent. 

What do you mean by the Law of Diminishing 
Returns f I will illustrate by an example : when 
a man owns a house equivalent in value to ten 
thousand dollars, he may be able to manage, 
without other labor than his own, the house ; rent 
it, keep it in repair, pay the taxes or Two Per 
Cent Eent on its full value, and, by working him- 
self, obtain an average living for himself and 
dependents, by means of the net return from it. 
But if he owned two such houses, he would find 
that the net return from the second $10,000 
house was diminishing; because he could not 
manage so efficiently, repair and pay the two per 
cent tax on the full value of two $10,000 houses 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 101 

as he could on one. And if he were to buy a third 
$10,000 house, the net return from the third 
house would still be less pro rata than that on 
either the first or second house. The net return 
on the fourth $10,000 house bought, would still 
be further decreased, until on the fifth $10,000 
house purchased, he would have no net return, 
and probably on the sixth $10,000 house acquired 
he might lose money. 

Why are you sure that this Law of Diminish- 
ing Returns is true? Because the more valua- 
ble property a small number of owners hold 
and control, the higher in value does said 
property go, due to the fact that a larger num- 
ber of people must do with less of such prop- 
erty; because the fewer have obtained more. 
This relation is always expressed in the value 
of the property, and if the law of value were 
given free play by the imposition and collection 
of a two per cent tax on the full value of all real 
and personal property, with the exceptions 
heretofore mentioned, the more property the 
average man owns, the less would be his rate 
of return from it, as compared with a man who 
owns just enough to keep himself fully and 
profitably employed. 

75 there any other reason for the Law of Di- 
minishing Returns? Yes. A Divine Providence 
has so decreed things that when a valuable 
property is not repaired and cared for, it gen- 
erally and rapidly tends to decay, and in time 
resolves itself into some preceding elementary 
state, unless more labor is expended in preserv- 



102 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

ing it. To preserve valuable property from de- 
cay, every large property-owner must hire addi- 
tional assistance, as the amount he holds or 
owns increases in value and quantity. For the 
reason that the average hired man will not work 
for an employer as well as he will work for him- 
self, the large property-owner discovers that 
the more men he hires (an employee seldom 
equals, in energy, a man working for himself) 
the more of his own time must be spent in 
watching or superintending the hired men and, 
consequently, the less of his own personal labor 
can he apply to the care and profitable manage- 
ment of the property. This entails an addi- 
tional rate of loss to the large property-owner, 
or a diminishing net return, as the quantity and 
value of the property owned by him is increased. 

Would this Just Money be a very stable cur- 
rency in the event of war with another nation® 
It would be the very best currency in the event 
of war. 

Why so? Because every citizen in a true re- 
public who possesses Just Money will not be 
disposed to have the "purchasing-power" of his 
money destroyed as a result of the destruction 
of the true republic. Consequently, he would be 
more selfishly inclined to uphold the true repub- 
lic issuing his money and to fight for it, in the 
event of war, than if the value of his money 
were in the form of gold or silver, whose own- 
ers, like the Pothschilds and their kind, would 
most probably, take away their white and yel- 
low metal, when the true republic became en- 



A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 103 

gaged in a war struggle ; a time in which a na- 
tion needs its "purchasing-power" the most. 

Hoiv many of these Government Stations at 
which U. S. citizens could obtain employment 
ivould you have established throughout the 
United States? As many as there are cities 
containing a population of one hundred thou- 
sand persons or more. 

Why so many cities? For the reason that 
there should be many money centers in this 
country, instead of one chief center (Wall 
Street and vicinity) as is the case to-day. 

Have you any other reason? Yes. The num- 
ber of money centers, such as the proposed Gov- 
ernment Stations, would then be so distributed 
throughout the United States, that unemployed 
citizens or those citizens desiring government 
work, would not be compelled to travel a long 
distance in order to obtain government employ- 
ment. 

Would this hind of money (Just Money) gen- 
erally remain at home in this country to facili- 
tate the exchange of commodities? It would. 

Why so? Because such money would gener- 
ally buy more in this country than elsewhere 
and because every Just-Money-dollar taken 
abroad, which was not lost or destroyed, would 
soon be returned to this country, in which its 
"purchasing power" would generally be the 
greatest, in order to be exchanged for other 
useful things. 

Would this government sustain any loss as a 



104 A TEUE UNIT OF VALUE 

result of any Just Money being taken abroad 
and lost or destroyed? It would not. 

Why not? Because every dollar of Just 
Money lost or destroyed abroad, would be equal 
in value to the value of a quantity of useful 
articles left in the United States for use and 
consumption by Americans ; instead of being ap- 
plied to the use of foreigners, as would be the 
case, if the Just Money lost or destroyed abroad 
had been preserved and used by said foreigners 
to purchase American articles of utility for the 
use and consumption of those foreigners who 
had lost or destroyed said Just Money. 

Could the script issued by the Isle of Guern- 
sey village board be used to circulate abroad? 
Not to any great extent. But script legally is- 
sued in the same manner with full legal tender- 
power by a national government founded on 
the consent of the people could. 

Why so? For the reason that the script is- 
sued by a true republic would be an order or a 
draft on all useful or valuable property for sale 
within the true republic issuing it ; and a specific 
quantity of such script would always exchange 
for a quantity of useful or desirable things equal 
in value to that of said quantity of nationally 
issued script, provided the nation's script was a 
full-legal-tender Just Money. 

Would this Just Money measure the value of 
any real or personal property in the United 
States ivithout injustice to the owners? It 
would. 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 105 

Why would itf Because its supply would not 
depend on any caprice of Nature or the cupidity 
of bankers or private money-lenders, who gen- 
erally strive to keep the supply of money scarce 
in order to force many people to borrow from 
them at some rate of interest ; which would not 
be necessary if the masses could do business 
generally on a cash basis ; nor would the supply 
of money be increased or decreased by any 
machinations of " money speculators. " While 
the supply of houses, land or commodities, for 
sale, might change, the average daily or hourly 
wages, in Just Money, of laborers, would bear 
the same relation to labor at all times ; that is, 
it would take the same quantity of average labor 
to get a Just Money dollar at all times, and the 
quantity of Just Money required to buy any 
real or personal property would be large, when* 
such property was scarce ; and small, when such 
property was plentiful; just as would be the 
case when said property was scarce, it would 
require more " average day's labor to get it, 
and when said property was plentiful, it would 
require less "average day's labor' ' to get it.* 
In this manner, a "Labor Unit" founded on 
the "average wages," per hour or day, paid in 
the United States, as shown by the monthly re- 
ports sent to the Secretary of the Treasury by 
the private employers of labor, would be the 
basis of Just Money. 



106 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

LESSON XII. 
VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

If you could convince the American people 
that the Just Money System, and the Death Rate 
Tax System, were all that you contend they are, 
how could you prevent public officials from 
"selling the people out" to the tax-dodgers, 
money-cornerers and vote-buyers, as they now 
do, under our present governments The adop- 
tion of the late David Eeeves Smith's system 
of Perpetual Voting (see cut in appendix), un- 
der which the electors could exercise absolute 
control over their public servants, at all times, 
by the means of the Power of Recall, would com- 
pel public officials to become public servants in 
practice as well as in theory ; and when any of 
them "sold out" their constituents, they could 
be immediately removed from public office. 

Can you more clearly explain this Perpetual 
System of Voting with which you propose to 
control the Secretary of the Treasury and all 
other important public officials, when he issues 
this Just Money? I can. It is a system of vot- 
ing under which the elector writes on a book, 
kept for the purpose, called a Vote Eecord, the 
name of his candidate. 

Would not the elector's writing his choice for 
office, on a book, disclose to the public how he 
voted and thereby destroy the "secrecy of the 
ballot"? It would. But secrecy at the ballot- 
box is wrong. Every elector should be required 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 107 

to vote in such a manner that any neighbor, so 
desiring, could learn how he voted. 

75 not the secret system of voting the best? 
It is the very worst. 

Why so? Because under the cover of secrecy 
the greatest frauds, outrages and hypocrisies at 
the ballot-box can be perpetrated. 

What do you mean? I mean that when the 
voting is secret, it is easiest for dishonest in- 
spectors or other election officials to overturn 
the will of the people in big cities and else- 
where, by permitting i ' repeaters ' ' to vote or by 
being unable to prevent them from voting, or by 
dishonestly counting the vote. 

Why can't fraudulent "repeaters" under the 
secret ballot be prevented from voting? Be- 
cause professional " repeaters, ' ' by acquiring a 
temporary "voting residence' ' in compliance 
with the law, in different polling precincts, are 
enabled to vote illegally in several precincts. As 
no inspector of elections can familiarize himself 
with all, or sometimes even a large majority of 
the voters in a densely populated election pre- 
cinct, he must in many cases accept the repre- 
sentations of the " repeater' ' or his abettors, as 
to the repeater's identity and right to vote. But 
under the system of requiring each elector to 
inscribe, in his own handwriting, the name of a 
candidate on the Vote Eecord, it would be pos- 
sible to discover, in a comparatively short time, 
that the repeater's handwriting was that of a 
man who was not entitled to vote. Then the 



108 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

vote could be declared illegal, treated as void, 
and the " repeater" arrested. 

Can not the repeater's vote be thrown out un- 
der the present system, ivhen the ballots are 
counted election night by the inspectors? It 
can not. 

Why not? Because the "repeater's" ballot 
generally presents an appearance similar to 
that of an honest elector's and therefore can 
not be distinguished from an honest elector's 
ballot. 

What other objections have you to secret vot- 
ing? It enables an elector to pretend to be on 
the side of Truth, Eight, and Justice, three hun- 
dred and sixty-four days in the year, and then> 
on the three hundred and sixty-fifth (election- 
day), because of employment, a money payment, 
or some other consideration, vote for rascality 
and corruption, without its being generally 
known, except to the politician who buys the 
vote and the vote-seller himself. 

Any other objection? Yes. The fact that 
secret voting enables ignorant and thoughtless 
electors to shirk the responsibility of their 
votes. 

How so? By affirming, when an officer elected 
by them has proven incompetent or dishonest, 
that they did not vote for said officer. 

If we had an open system of voting would not 
the rich man intimidate the poor man by threat- 
ening the latter ivith loss of employment? Not 
if the vote-recording-system were applied to the 
whole United States. 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 109 

Why not? Because if everyone entitled to a 
vote in the United States were forced to vote 
openly, it would soon be discovered that the em- 
ployers were very much in the minority, and 
when the workmen learned how great the toil- 
ers ' majority was (provided the laws herein- 
before described, which would prevent tax- 
dodging and money-cornering, were adopted) 
the workers would not submit to dictation on 
the part of a small minority whose "purchasing 
power " would be greatly reduced by the adop- 
tion and enforcement of the Ownership Eecord, 
Self Assessment and Homestead Exemption 
laws hereinbefore explained. 

Have you any other reason? Yes. 

What is it? Under this Perpetual Voting 
System, every elector would be permitted to 
change his vote once a week and, with this power 
of changing his vote, the electors could bring 
about the enactment of laws which would pre- 
vent the employer from intimidating his em- 
ployes. Besides, when an elector could with- 
draw his support from any official, at the end of 
a week, all government officials in order to hold 
their "jobs" would strive to please their con- 
stituents. As doing right will only satisfy the 
majority of voters (when all the facts are 
spread before them), employers would be forced 
by the government to refrain from intimidating 
workmen. 

Bow do you know that the electors would stand 
up for their rights under open voting? For the 
reason that, when the Ownership-Eecord, Self- 



110 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

Assessment and Jnst Money laws are on our 
statute books, all enterprising workmen will 
own enough property with "purchasing power' ' 
to enable them to exercise the courage of inde- 
pendent free-holders. As owners of home- 
steads exempt from taxation to the amount of 
$2,000, and free from confiscation for the non- 
payment of debts on that amount, in addition to 
having an opportunity to obtain employment at 
the Government Stations and be paid in Just 
Money of unvarying value, no industrious and 
provident citizen would in any sense be depend- 
ent on any employer, as is the case within the 
domain of the U. S. Government, under which 
a very large per cent of our most valuable 
wealth is monopolized by a few individuals. The 
ability to live independently would make "lib- 
erty-lovers" out of the majority of workers 
who would not, when they enjoyed true liberty, 
fear any great capitalist. Only extraordinarily 
talented men would, under these laws, possess 
great quantities of capital, and immensely rich 
persons would be be so comparatively few in 
number, that no intelligent laborer could be in- 
timidated by any employer. 

Have, you any other reason for affirming that 
secrecy at the ballot is wrong? Yes. Under the 
secret ballot it cannot be easily discovered who 
are voting for vicious principles or bad men, 
and who are voting for just principles or good 
men, and at the same time (when the discovery 
is made) deal out to each credit or discredit, re- 
spectively, by the means of public opinion, as 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 111 

would be the case when electors vote by writ- 
ing their candidate's name on a public record. 

Why do you insist that a public record of 
every vote should be preserved under a just 
system of voting? Because the illegal vote, 
when once detected and identified, under an open 
method of recording votes, could be rendered 
nugatory by the inspector's refusing to count 
it ; while the honest vote could be preserved and 
given at all times the full credit to which it is 
entitled. 

What would be the effect of secret voting if it 
were logically carried out, all through our gov- 
ernment, from the voter, at the ballot-box, down 
to a vote by the members of the U. S. Senate? It 
would destroy all responsibility to the people on 
the part of every public department so voting. 

Can you make yourself clearer? Yes. If our 
U. S. Senate, House of Bepresentatives, State 
Senate and State Assembly were to vote secret- 
ly, the sovereign people could not place, where it 
belonged, the responsibility for any bad national 
or state law which might be passed, and, as a 
result, the people would be helplessly in the 
hands of mercenary legislators, who could sell 
their votes and receive the "booty" therefor, 
without being discovered by their constituen- 
cies. Bedlam would ensue throughout the 
United States if secret voting were allowed in 
our state and national halls of legislation, dur- 
ing the enactment of laws; as secret voting is 
now practiced at the ballot-box by our sovereign 
electors, when choosing their public officials. 



112 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

What is the relation under our American Re- 
public between public officials and the voters? 
That of servant and sovereign. 

When our public servants, such as U. S. Sena- 
tors, Representatives, State Senators and As- 
semblymen vote openly in their respective bod- 
ies, is it not cowardly and inconsistent for their 
masters, the sovereign electors, to vote secretly f 
It certainly is. 

Why so? Because any people who are fit to 
govern themselves should never be guilty of any 
deed which they are ashamed to record, nor 
should they hesitate to acknowledge any act, 
good or bad, particularly when they insist on 
their public servants acknowledging their votes. 
Manly citizens never ask their servants, public 
or private, to do what they are afraid to do 
themselves. 

Any other reason? Yes. No " sovereign' ' 
elector should ask any public official to vote 
openly without being willing to vote openly him- 
self. Practical politicians never permit their 
delegates in political conventions to vote se- 
cretly; the delegates must all vote openly. 

Have you any other reason for approving of 
open voting? Yes. Open voting and keeping a 
public record of every legal vote, would enable 
public officials to observe any change in the 
reasoning of the people and anticipate it, if the 
change were for the better. 

Would not voters change their officials and 
their policies too frequently, if they were enjoy- 
ing a system of voting under tvhich they could 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 113 

recall their public servants at any time? They 
might, when the system first went into vogue; 
but when their intelligence had been improved 
by learning how to stop vote-buying, money- 
cokneking and tax-dodging, they would discover 
that all officials must be left long enough in of- 
fice to fairly test any particular policy. Most 
people are naturally conservative, and disposed 
to cling to old forms and customs too tenacious- 
ly. They refuse, generally, to adopt new forms 
and customs suddenly. Nations have with few 
exceptions been disposed to avoid innovations of 
any kind, and, as a consequence, radical meas- 
ures would not be suddenly adopted, if the peo- 
ple were permitted to freely exercise their own 
judgment. 

Have you any other reason for advocating 
open voting? Yes. 

What is it? The reason urged by Cicero, the 
great Eoman lawyer, who nearly two thousand 
years ago affirmed: that in order to obtain or 
measure the moral value (character) of the 
votes by a consideration of the person who gave 
them, the voting must be open. In other words : 
in order to enable a good man to exercise his 
righteous influence on his fellow beings, the 
laws and candidates for which he voted should 
be known to all the electors ; and what the bad 
men were voting for should also be known, that 
it might be opposed by the honest and righteous. 

Would the people have sufficient intelligence 
to properly direct their public servants? The 



114 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

majority would, if all the facts were submitted 
to them. 

How do the masses of people generally meas- 
ure the efficiency of public officials? By the 
quantity of general prosperity the masses enjoy. 
When prosperity is great, under certain public 
officials, the disposition of the majority of voters 
is to retain such officials in power; and when the 
prosperity is small, the disposition of the ma- 
jority of electors is to turn out of office the pub- 
lic functionaries responsible for the increased 
adversity or reduced prosperity. 

What are the chief features of Perpetual Vot- 
ing? It permits the people to exercise the 
1 i power of recall "; to introduce any law they 
desire to have written on our statute books ; to 
decide what per cent of the vote shall elect to, 
or remove any elective official from office; to 
veto or repeal any unjust law; to nominate a 
candidate directly; and to have indisputable 
evidence against any fraudulent voter who at- 
tempts to vote by illegally writing down any 
candidate's name on the Vote Becord. 

Would not your system of requiring an elector 
to write his candidate' s name on a Vote Record, 
in each election-precinct , exclude from voting all 
who could not write? It would. 

Would not this be unjust to the illiterate? It 
would not. 

Why not? Because, if the few illiterate were 
disfranchised, the advantages derived from fair 
and honest elections, as the result of writing 
down all candidates ' names, would more than 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 115 

offset the small injury done the few illiterates. 
We should always strive to do the greatest good 
to the greatest number, without invading in- 
dividual natural rights ; and any effectual means 
of guaranteeing the honesty of elections would 
invariably result in promoting the general wel- 
fare. Besides, the illiterate would then have a 
greater incentive to learn to write. It would be 
no great task for an uneducated man to prac- 
tice writing, sufficiently, to enable him to write 
down a single candidate's name at any one time. 

Have you any other reason for insisting that a 
voter must ivrite down his candidate's name? 
Yes. 

What is it? If the state has the right to ex- 
clude from voting all who are under twenty- 
one years of age, it has a similar right, when 
striving to promote the general welfare, to pre- 
scribe what must be the qualifications of all 
electors, in order to guard most effectually 
against election frauds of all kinds. 

Am I to understand that under the Perpetual 
Voting System electors will he voting "all the 
time?" No. 

What does "Perpetual" mean as used to de- 
scribe Perpetual Voting? It means that when 
an elector writes in the proper place on the Vote 
Becord, the name of his choice for any office, 
and lets the name stand unchanged, that (when- 
ever the vote is counted, whether every week, 
month, six months, or every year) said elector 
is voting perpetually for that particular candi- 
date. 



116 JUST TAXATION 

How would this system prevent vote-buying? 
By permitting the elector to change his vote 
once in each week, the bnyer would be forced to 
keep the vote-seller constantly supplied with 
money ; otherwise the vote-seller would not con- 
tinue supporting the vote-buyer's candidate, but 
would vote for an opposition candidate in order 
to compel the vote-buyer to provide the vote- 
seller with more money. As the vote-buyers 
could not furnish sufficient money to induce all 
the vote-sellers, or an important part of them, 
to constantly vote for the vote-buyers' candi- 
dates, the latter would abandon the vote-buying 
business. 

LESSOR XIII. 
JUST TAXATION 

Would you require each state to collect its two 
per cent annual tax or rent on all real and per- 
sonal property, situated in the United States? 

No, I would have the National government 
collect it, and then expend it for improvements 
in each state according to the number of in- 
habitants. 

Why so? Because it is only by having the 
Federal government collect the two per cent 
annual rent or tax from the owners of all real 
and personal property, throughout the United 
States, in proportion to its full value, that 
equality of taxation among the citizens of the 
United States can be carried into practice. 

Can you make your point clearer by illustra- 
tion? Yes, an acre of soil at the corner of Wall 



JUST TAXATION 117 

and Broad streets, New York City, at the same 
price in money for which some of the property 
on this corner has been sold, is equivalent in 
value to the value of $20,000,000 of U. S. money. 
An acre of some kinds of ordinary land in Rens- 
selaer County, New York State, is equivalent in 
value to only the value of $20. If a two per cent 
tax or rent were collected annually from each 
owner of these respective acres, by New York 
State, on these valuations, the owner of the 
Broad and Wall streets acre would be forced to 
pay into New York State's treasury, annually, 
$400,000 and the Rensselaer County acre's 
owner would be compelled to pay into the Em- 
pire State's treasury, annually, 40 cents, making 
a total of $400,000.40 paid into New York State's 
treasury to be used for the public benefit of the 
inhabitants of the Empire State, in which these 
two particular New York State owners would 
participate and share alike. Between these two 
owners, there would be equality of taxation. But 
if a man in Logan County, 111., owning an acre 
of soil equivalent in value to $20, were to pay 
annually a two per cent tax or rent into Illinois ' 
State treasury, he would not be equally taxed 
when compared with the New York State's acre- 
owners; because he would receive no benefit 
from the $400,000 paid into New York State's 
treasury, as the Rensselaer County $20 acre- 
owner would. 

Would not the Illinois owner of the $20 acre, 
in Logan county, obtain a benefit from, a two per 
cent annual tax collected by the state of Illinois 



118 JUST TAXATION 

from a citizen who owned an acre of soil in Chi- 
cago, equivalent in value to the value of $50,000, 
just as the Rensselaer county $20 acre owner 
receives a benefit from the $400,000 paid by the 
Wall and Broad streets' acre-owner into New 
York State's treasury, provided the ttvo per 
cent tax, or rent, were paid into the Illinois 
State treasury, to be expended in public im- 
provements? He would, but the Illinois real and 
personal property owners, as well as all other 
citizens of the United States, are entitled to a 
share in the benefits to be derived from the 
$400,000 as well as New York State's real and 
personal property owners, because the Wall and 
Broad streets' acre belongs in common to all the 
citizens of the United States, as well as to the 
citizens of New York State. 

Have you any other reason for insisting that 
Illinois citizens and the citizens of all other 
states should share in the public benefits to be 
supplied by the expenditure of the $400,000? I 
have. 

What is it? The prodigious mountain of 
value or "purchasing power," exercised by the 
owners of the Broad and Wall streets acre, is 
due in part to the wants and existence of the 
people residing throughout the United States, 
and to the useful and valuable things taken by 
contract from them, directly or indirectly, by 
the Wall and Broad streets acre-owner ; and the 
value of the acre, should, therefore, be shared 
in by all the citizens of the United States, in- 
stead of by New York State's citizens alone. 






JUST TAXATION 119 

Consequently, in order to equalize taxation on a 
just basis throughout the United States, our 
Federal Government should collect a two per 
cent tax or rent on the full value of all real and 
personal property (with the exceptions hereto- 
fore mentioned) situated in the United States 
and then expend it for public improvements 
throughout the United States, or for whatever 
purpose the people of the United States, by 
means of their laws, should order. 

What is your reason for believing that the 
Federal Government should collect the two per 
cent rent, or tax, from the owners of all real and 
personal property throughout the United 
States? For the purpose of establishing equali- 
ty of taxation on the basis of VALUE among 
all the owners of real and personal property 
throughout the United States. 

Do not the owners of personal property pay 
taxes to their respective states on their personal 
property according to its full value? They do 
not. Why not? Because under the personal 
property laws of the various states, personal 
property owners are supposed to be taxed on 
their property, at the residence of the owners, 
and the owners generally, by claiming residence 
in states in which the personal property is not 
situated, or by offsetting it with fictitious debts, 
evade the payment of taxes or public rent on 
the largest part of their personal property. 

Can you give a, specific example of hoiv per- 
sonal property owners evade the payment of 
taxes on the full value of their property? I can. 



120 JUST TAXATION 

In New York, N. Y., reside many owners of vast 
quantities of personal property, in the form of 
bonds, stocks, yachts, paintings, automobiles, 
mortgages, machinery, works of art, etc., on 
which is paid little or no taxes. A former New 
York City tax commissioner claims that the 
value of all personal property owned by persons 
actually or nominally residents of New York 
City, equals the value of $70,000,000,000 in 
United States money. The larger part of this 
great quantity of personal property-value is due 
to the fact that people residing, generally out- 
side of New York City and without Wall street 
connections, are supplying the interest, earn- 
ings, dividends, and other forms of "purchas- 
ing power' ' collected by the owners of this 
enormous quantity of personal property. By 
permitting this vast quantity of valuable per- 
sonal property to be unrecorded, there is no per- 
sonal-property-list, in any office, similar to the 
real property-lists at present found in County 
Clerks' offices, which can be examined by as- 
sessors, or any properly qualified citizen, in 
order to discover what owners are avoiding the 
payment of taxes on the full value of their per- 
sonal property. In the year 1909, this vast 
quantity of personal property owned by actual 
or nominal residents of New York City escaped 
taxation, with the exception of $443,000,000. If 
two per centum of the full value of this seventy 
billions of dollars in "purchasing power" were 
collected annually by the Federal Government 
and expended for the benefit of all the citizens 



JUST TAXATION 121 

of the United States, the injustice done citizens 
residing outside of New York city, by permit- 
ting said New York owners of this vast quantity 
of personal property to escape the payment of 
their public rent or taxes on so large a propor- 
tion, would be, to a great extent, removed. Were 
these New York owners of personal property 
required to pay taxes on the full value of their 
personal property at a two per cent rate, into 
the United States Treasury, the Secretary of the 
Treasury would have $1,400,000,000 to expend, 
annually, on national public improvements, be- 
sides the additional revenue which would come 
from the owners of other real and personal 
property in the United States, which now es- 
capes taxation, more or less, provided the Own- 
ership Eecording Law and the Self-Assessment 
Law, heretofore described, were written on our 
national statute books and enforced. 

Would you allow personal property oivners to 
deduct their debts from the value of their per- 
sonal property, and then pay taxes or public 
rent on the value of the remainder? I would, if 
the creditors were American citizens and they 
were paying taxes on the full value of the debts 
owned by them. 

Would you apply the same rule to the oivners 
of real property? I would. 

In what way? By permitting real property 
owners, who are the legal owners, to deduct the 
value of the mortgages from the value of the 
mortgaged real property, and then paying taxes 
on the remainder, termed, in law, the "equity." 



122 JUST TAXATION 

Would not the lenders of money charge the 
taxes imposed on the owners of mortgages up to 
the borrowers, when the latter negotiated their 
loans ? They would try to, but when Just Money 
is issued in the manner heretofore described, 
borrowers would not be at the mercy of the pri- 
vate owners of money, as they now are ; and as 
every owner of real and personal property 
would be compelled to pay taxes on the full value 
of his property, with the exceptions heretofore 
described, taxes or public rent, would be col- 
lected from the owners of valuable property, 
no matter what the form of the valuable prop- 
erty; as a result, the schemes to shift the bur- 
den of taxes to the worker would fail and no 
provident worker would be forced to borrow 
money in order to buy a home, or be compelled 
to mortgage his property above the amount 
held under the $2,000 Homestead Exemption 
Law. 

How could, our government raise war funds, 
when necessary, under the system of govern- 
ment you are advocating? If the two per cent 
tax, or rent, would not supply sufficient money 
for war purposes, the raising of the rate to 
three or four per cent would. But if the afore- 
said systems of voting, finance and taxation 
were adopted throughout the world, the reduc- 
tion in value of all useful things on this earth 
about ninety per cent of their former value, 
would destroy the greater part of the "war in- 
centive" which now exists, because of the ex- 
traordinarily high value of useful things 



JUST TAXATION 123 

and the difficulty of an important part of the 
populations of all nations to procure a sufficien- 
cy of food, clothing and shelter. If every na- 
tion on this earth were to bring into use the 
land, houses, patents, machinery, etc., within its 
territory now partly or wholly held out of use, 
or being used for frivolous purposes, no nation 
would, now or in the future, seek war as an ex- 
cuse for despoiling some other nation, in order 
to supply its own propertyless people with a 
sufficiency of food, clothing or shelter, or a se- 
lect few of its wealthy citizens with additional 
plunder. If the plan of government, herein ad- 
vocated, were to be adopted throughout the 
world, it would not be long before every intel- 
ligent person would discover that wars are ex- 
pressly precipitated for the purpose of diverting 
the attention of the oppressed, from their op- 
pressors (kings, plutocrats, bureaucrats, cor- 
porations ; etc.), who, in the excitement brought 
about by wars, shift public attention from them- 
selves and continue their exploiting of the pro- 
ducers with more impunity than formerly. 

Would you require every article of merchan- 
dise, ivhich a merchant has in his store, to be 
recorded on the personal property list to be 
kept in the Assembly District Recording office? 
I would. 

Why? Because it would not do to permit tax- 
dodgers to have any excuse for not recording 
their property. The rule that all valuable prop- 
erty must be recorded should have no excep- 
tion, only that of money. 



124 JUST TAXATION 

Could a person buy any or several articles in 
a merchant's store at the price it was assessed 
in the Assembly District Recording office? He 
could not. He would be required to buy the 
whole stock at the amount on which the mer- 
chant had assessed his whole stock for taxa- 
tion purposes. 

What great advantage have these Neiv York 
owners of undertaxed real and personal prop- 
erty over citizens in other states? By the 
means of the enormous and partly taxed "pur- 
chasing power" exercised through their owner- 
ship of this great quantity of valuable real and 
personal property, they command the services 
of unskilled laborers, mechanics, legislators, 
politicians, etc., throughout the United States, 
to such an extent that they can corrupt, and fre- 
quently do, nearly every state and national leg- 
islature, enact or repeal laws, legalize official or 
unofficial dishonesty, exploit innocent toilers, 
seduce great numbers of unsophisticated 
women; or do almost anything, however de- 
grading or unscrupulous, for which money or 
other kinds of "purchasing power" can com- 
pensate. 

Cannot each separate state, by enacting just 
real and personal property laws, control and 
regulate the "purchasing power" of their re- 
spective property owners? It cannot. Only the 
National Government can exercise this function 
justly and effectively. The "purchasing power" 
of real and personal property owners reaches 
beyond all state lines. 



JUST TAXATION 125 

75 not the "purchasing power" enjoyed by 
New York City's wealthy citizens due to the 
natural advantages of the city's location ? Some 
of it is ; but the greater part is due to the fact 
that New York City is a secure asylum for per- 
sonal property tax-dodgers, and is also the 
headquarters of the chief money- owners in the 
United States. 

Why is the metropolis a safe retreat for per-) 
sonal property tax-dodgers? Because the tax 
laws of New York State are so lax, and so negli- 
gently enforced, that personal property owners 
in said state are not compelled to record their 
property in any "recording office"; and for the 
additional reason, that, when a personal prop- 
erty-owner falsely states the amount of his in- 
debtedness, that he may deduct it from the 
amount of the assessment of the personal prop- 
erty on which he is liable for taxation, the tax 
commissioners of New York City seldom ex- 
amine under oath, the so-called creditors or al- 
leged owners of said debts, for the purpose of 
discovering, whether or not, the indebtedness is 
fictitious. 

Would the collection of the Two Per Cent 
rent or tax from all real and personal property 
owners, throughout the United States, by the 
Federal Government, prevent personal property 
owners from claiming or establishing residences 
in different states, in their efforts to avoid the 
payment of any tax or rent on their personal 
property? If it did not prevent them from mov- 
ing about so frequently, when the ownership of 



126 JUST TAXATION 

their personal property was discovered, they 
would be convinced of the futility of attempting 
to avoid the payment of their taxes or public 
rent, provided the Ownership Eecord and Self 
Assessment laws were enforced. 

Hoiv do the tax commissioners of New York 
City learn the names of personal property own- 
ers, residing or claiming residence in New York 
City? By guessing at them, with more or less 
good faith. 

What do you mean? I mean that the tax 
commissioners of New York City have no pub- 
lic list of personal-property-owners similar to 
the real property list kept in the New York 
City tax office. Consequently, New York City's 
tax commissioners, or their employees, look 
through the city or business directories, and 
search, indifferently, for names displayed in 
capital letters, or the names of brokers, bank- 
ers, lawyers, merchants, etc., and after making 
a guess as to who may or may not have valuable 
personal property, send such persons legal com- 
mands, called "tentative notices,' ' to report to 
the tax office and testify, under oath, as to their 
possession of valuable personal property. 

Can you explain why owners of large quanti- 
ties of personal property (men like Ludrew Tar- 
nagie) deliberately select New York City as a 
residential haven, ivhen desirous of avoiding the 
payment of their personal property taxes? Yes. 
Because New York City's tax commissioners 
will tax such owners "by consent." 

What do you mean "by consent?" When a 



JUST TAXATION 127 

rich personal property owner from the west or 
south or any state, other than New York, is dis- 
satisfied with his personal property assessment, 
he, or his attorney, visits the New York City 
tax commissioners, and after claiming residence 
in New York City, agrees to pay taxes on a very 
insignificant assessment, to which the commis- 
sioners generally consent, on the ground that 
if they refused to accept the personal property 
owner's proposition, he would claim residence 
in some out-of-the-state town, in which the tax- 
assessors of said town would agree to assess 
him on a smaller amount, and New York City, 
as a result, would receive nothing in the form 
of taxes from said owner's personal property. 

Have you any other reason? Yes, New York 
City is an excellent place for living in a large 
apartment house, in which access to a native- 
personal-property-owner, or an owner who is 
dodging the payment of taxes on personal prop- 
erty which ought to be paid in his former west- 
ern or southern home, is unapproachable, to any 
kind of a process server. These tax-dodging- 
personal-property-owners can seldom be sur- 
prised while in said apartment rooms ; because 
all persons seeking them must disclose the na- 
ture of their missions, through a telephone to 
the dodger or his secretary, before he is per- 
mitted to see the personal property owner and 
evader of process-service; or else the person 
desiring the interview must convince the person 
hiding that his mission is not that of a messen- 
ger from outraged justice. 



128 JUST TAXATION 

What would be the effect of the Ownership 
Recording Law and the Self Assessment Law on 
the various stock and produce exchanges in New 
York City and other large speculating centers? 
Vfere these laws enforced on the owners of all 
real and personal property throughout the 
United States, by the Federal Government col- 
lecting the Two Per Cent rent, or tax, annually, 
on the full value of all real and personal prop- 
erty, with the exceptions heretofore mentioned, 
and were the power of issuing money taken out 
of the hands of private individuals, banking cor- 
porations, etc., and placed exclusively in the 
hands of the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, 
in the maner hereinbefore described, the power 
of all speeulating-exchanges in these United 
States to monopolize or manipulate money and 
commodities, would be so materially reduced 
that such bodies could no longer be a species of 
parasite on the body politic of society. 

Which is the most powerful trust, existing 
under our present government? The money or 
banking trust. 

Why so? Because the money or banking trust 
is the keystone of the "trust arch" which holds 
the great majority of trusts in this country 
together. 

Hoiv do you make that out? For the reason 
that it is the money or banking trust which dic- 
tates to and regulates all the other large monop- 
olies, such as those of meat, coal, oil, land, iron, 
sugar, lumber, etc., and makes it possible for 



JUST TAXATION 129 

the "cornering" of such commodities to be suc- 
cessful. 

Can you make this point clearer? Yes. When 
Parmour contemplates " cornering" meat, he 
must secure the approval of the money or bank- 
ing trust; otherwise, the money trust, or its 
branches, would refuse to let him have the 
amount of money necessary to employ his 
agents, in buying up the most important part of 
all saleable meat. If the "money trust" were 
to condemn Parmour 's financial machinations, 
it would not permit him to monopolize an im- 
portant part of the meat supply, but would re- 
fuse to let him have the necessary amount of 
money with which to carry out his nefarious 
schemes, and as a consequence the "corner" 
would fail. Gavemeyer, Batten, Hockfeller, 
Lorgan and other great owners of partly taxed 
wealth, who are generally part bankers, never 
proceed to "corner" any commodity without 
the approval of the bankers. Thus it is that 
the money trust, or bankers, have first "in- 
sight" into almost every "cornering" scheme; 
and therefore can retard or promote almost 
every monopolistic conspiracy undertaken in 
this country. And it is even so with stocks. 
When a corporation's stock is put on the finan- 
cial market, the bankers by refusing to lend 
money on it, can substantially destroy the ' ' pur- 
chasing power" of its owners. On the other 
hand, the bankers, by lending money on a worth- 
less stock, can increase its value until it ad- 
vances in money price to the figure at which it 



130 JUST TAXATION 

is profitable for those on the "inside," with the 
assistance of lies and false financial reports, to 
sell. 

Would the owners of all kinds of stocks, 
whether watered or not, he forced to record their 
stock in some Assembly District Recording of- 
fice, in which the owner lived, under the penalty 
of forfeiting it to the first person who discovered 
it unrecorded® They wonld, if it were, or about 
to become, valuable. 

Would you, by law, force the owner to sell the 
stock at the valuation on which he was paying 
the Two Per Cent rent or tax? I wonld. 

Would not the purchaser, in this manner, buy 
it too cheap from the owner? Then let the owner 
assess the stock at its true valuation, or a little 
higher, in order to protect himself. Two per 
centum is only two dollars on each one hundred 
dollars. Yet two per cent annually, on the 
value or "purchasing power" of all watered 
stock, would bring a great revenue to the fed- 
eral government and serve as a deterrent to 
those unscrupulous promoters who issue wa- 
tered stock for the express purpose of selling 
it to a gullible public or extorting unjust in- 
terest and dividends from the people. 

How would the Two Per Cent tax or rent ef- 
fect the monopolizers of food? It would force 
the owners of food kept in granaries, cold stor- 
age warehouses, farmers' barns, or elsewhere, 
to pay two per cent annually on the full value of 
the food being held for a future rise in value or 
money-price, as well as upon the full value of the 



STATUTE LAW CEUCIBLE 131 

granaries, barns, cold-storage plants, etc. But 
the greatest benefit derived from this tax, or 
rent, would go to the workers, who, being en- 
abled to obtain land and other valuable prop- 
erty at a low valuation, would produce a very 
important part of everything they needed, and 
in this manner, be relieved from the necessity 
of buying at exhorbitant prices from the (at 
present) tax dodging trusts or millionaires. 

Do you know of any country in which this 
idea of buying an owner's property at the val- 
uation in the public record, on which he is pay- 
ing taxes is practiced? Yes. New Zealand em- 
ploys this idea in part, when collecting taxes on 
land. 

How so? Whenever an owner of land in 
New Zealand is dissatisfied with his assessment, 
the New Zealand government pays the owner 
the amount at which it is assessed, plus ten per 
centum of the amount, and then takes posses- 
sion of the land as government property, to be 
sold to a new purchaser. 

LESSON XIV. 
STATUTE LAW CBUCTBLE 

What is this "liberty" about which the mem- 
bers of all schools of political economy talk more 
or less? "Liberty is the equal, indefeasible 
right of all citizens to use all wealth, in their 
own way, and for their own individual benefit ; 
the right of each being limited, only, by the 
equal right of every other.' ' 

Has liberty any relation to the making of con- 



132 STATUTE LAW CEUCIBLE 

tracts? Yes, Liberty includes the right to make 
or not to make any legal contract concerning 
onr services or our property and to have it en- 
forced. 

Can a government prevent its citizens from 
making contracts? Only in a limited degree. 

Why so? Because citizens will make reason- 
able contracts in secrecy and carry them out in 
secrecy, even when prohibited by the govern- 
ment. 

What is a contract? Briefly, a contract is an 
agreement to do or not to do some act for a use- 
ful or valuable consideration. 

Should a truly republican government encour- 
age the making of contracts? It should when 
they are just. 

Why so? Because, by the means of contracts, 
time and labor may be economized — thus en- 
abling the devotion of more human effort to 
useful education and elevating amusement, on 
the part of all laborers. 

Have you any axioms or principles with which 
to examine the justice of all laws related to or 
concerning contracts? I have. 

What are they? They are rules and axioms 
evolved from the experience of the different 
nations on this earth, in their efforts to 
preserve themselves, triumph over their ene- 
mies, or promote the general welfare of hu- 
manity. 

Can you further explain them? Yes. They 
are a set of postulates which, if strictly adhered 
to by a government, will promote the general 



STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 133 

welfare of its people in the greatest degree. 
They are as follows : 

All men have an equal right to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. 

All men should be equal before the law. 

The sovereignty of a government should be 
vested in the whole people to whom it of natural 
right belongs. 

Every truly democratic government is an 
agent of the whole people and should exercise 
its power only with the consent of the governed. 

In production we should strive to exereisp * " 
much economy of time and labor as possible. 

Every person should have the privilege of 
pursuing whatever legal vocation he pleases, 
provided that in so doing he effects no person 
unjustly. 

Public officials should be public servants in 
practice, as well as in theory. 

The income a citizen receives should be in 
direct proportion to the service he renders the 
community; that is, if his service is large, his 
income should be large; and if his service is 
small, his income should be small. 

Every person engaged in any legal vocation is 
supposed to render the community a service. 

Every man should pay annually a two per 
cent tax or public rent to the community, for the 
wealth he is using, in proportion to the value of 
the wealth he uses. 

The man who economizes should be permitted 
to enjoy the fruits of his economy. 

Those persons best qualified for doing specific 



134 STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 

work are the persons who should be encouraged 
to do such work. 

Every competent person should be required by 
law to produce, at the least, as much as he con- 
sumes. 

All men should be considered innocent of any 
criminal intent until duly proven guilty by the 
law of the land. 

The welfare of the individual should be sub- 
ordinate to that of the community, limited by 
the inalienable natural rights of the individual. 
1 The higher ownership of all real and personal 
property is vested by natural right in the whole 
people. 

That act only should be done which results in 
the greatest good to the greatest number, with- 
out invading individual natural rights. 

The will of the majority should always pre- 
vail, when individual natural rights are not in- 
vaded. 

No man should be deprived of life, liberty, or 
property, without due process of law. 

An injury to one is the concern of all. 

The benefit of all is the concern of each. 

' l There is only one right way of doing things ; 
all other ways are necessarily wrong in some 
degree. ' ' 

The State should never do for an individual 
that which he can do for himself. 

"A truly democratic government should not 
engage in business of any kind, unless it can do 
so in a better manner and at a less cost than the 



STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 135 

same business can be done by private enter- 
prise.'' 

The safety of the people is the supreme law. 

No private citizen's property should be taken 
from him and given to another private citizen. 

1 ' The intensity of our desires is correctly mea- 
sured by the quantity of effort we are willing to 
expend in satisfying them." 

No special privilege should be granted any 
private individual. 

The foregoing postulates, if rigidly observed 
by our law-makers, would reduce enormously 
the number of legislative enactments, annually 
inscribed on our statute books, and bring sim- 
plicity out of the chaotic state in which law is 
now generally known to be. These axioms and 
principles (the principles are found in the na- 
ture of things) if taken together, will serve as a 
"law-crucible" with which to test all man-made- 
statutes. Any law, which conflicts with any of 
these axioms or principles, will not fit into said 
crucible and should be immediately repealed or 
removed from our statute books ; on the theory 
that it is wrong, unjust or impracticable, and in 
the course of time will be discovered by the peo- 
ple to be wrong, unjust or impracticable. 

75 there not much confusion among lawyers 
and students of political economy, in the use of 
the important terms necessarily employed by 
them in their efforts to clearly convey their 
various ideas? There is. 

How would you obviate such confusion? By 
adopting the following definitions, which do not 



136 LOGICAL DEFINITIONS 

(with the exception of the definition of Price) 
violate any of the Enles of Definition agreed 
upon by proficient logicians, when engaged in 
reasoning about, or describing, the principles of 
Natural Law: 

Eight "is that which promotes or increases 
human happiness." 

Soveeeignty "is the right to define the right 
and enforce the decision." 

Owneeship "is the right to use or utilize 
wealth." Individual ownership is subordinate 
to city-ownership; city-ownership to county- 
ownership; county-ownership to state owner- 
ship ; and state-ownership is subordinate to na- 
tional-ownership. 

Wealth "is anything that may be used or 
utilized. ' ' 

Peopeety "is wealth owned." 

Value is purchasing-power. The value of a 
thing is the purchasing-power which the owner- 
ship of the thing confers on the owner of the 
thing. Value is not an attribute ; it is a relation 
between property and humanity. It cannot be 
qualified. Using the adjective — substantives, 
"intrinsic," "exchange," "money," "market," 
"book," "rental," etc., to qualify value is like 
attempting to qualify "purchasing-power." 
There is but one kind of value and that is "pur- 
chasing-power." Scarcity is an indispensable 
relation accompanying value. 

Business is the making of contracts without 
sentiment. 

Capital is "accumulated purchasing power." 



LOGICAL DEFINITIONS 137 

Capitalist is an owner of capital. 

Price "When two things are exchanged, one 
for the other, each is the price of the other ; or 
the price of a thing is that for which it will ex- 
change. ' ' 

Labor "is any legal effort to obtain an in- 
come.' ' 

Income "is the wages of labor; it is the legal 
equivalent (in value or ' purchasing-power') 
for the products of the person who receives the 
income. ' ' 

Dollar is a money unit established by a gov- 
ernment. Its most important function is that of 
measuring value. Its subordinate functions are 
those of discharging debt and facilitating ex- 
change. It should fluctuate as little as possible 
in ' ' purchasing-power. ' ' It should be a full legal 
tender and be composed of a suitable material 
having the least value as a commodity. It should 
be based on the Labor Unit. 

Utility "is that which satisfies a desire, or 
supplies a want. ' ' 

Liberty "is the equal indefeasible right of all 
citizens to use all wealth in their own way and 
for their own individual benefit; the right of 
each being limited only by the equal right of 
every other." 

Justice "is the rendering to every individual 
his rights, on the basis of equality of natural 
rights to all. ' ' 

Rent "is the price paid to the owners of 
wealth by the users of wealth. ' ' 

Private Ownership "is the riffht of an indi- 



138 CONCLUSION 

vidual or plurality of individuals to appropriate 
to their own exclusive use some part of the com- 
mon estate.'' 

Law '4s the formal expression of the collec- 
tive will of the people. ' ' 

Education is that training of the mind and 
body which enables the graduated student to 
promote, or assist in the promoting, of the 
general welfare and, at the same time, to ob- 
tain for him or herself a just share of said gen- 
eral welfare. 

Aristocracy "is that part of society which 
controls legislation, subsists upon and exploits 
the other part. ' ' 

Would the employment of the foregoing 
axioms and definitions, in promoting the general 
welfare, alone establish justice under this gov- 
ernment or any true republic? They would not. 

Why not? Because a practicable and feasible 
method with which to prevent vote-buying, tax- 
dodging and money-cornering (the three great 
evils under all governments) must go with them. 
In other words, we must use the Perpetual Vot- 
ing System in learning the will of the people 
and carrying it out ; the Ownership Eecord, Self- 
Assessment and Homestead Exemption laws in 
collecting the People 's Eent or the two per cent 
Death Eate Tax annually; and the Just Money 
System in measuring the value of all real and 
personal property, when effecting exchanges, or 
assessing real and personal property for the 
purposes of taxation or the collection of the 
People's Eent. 

THE END. 



THE VOTE EECOED 



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140 THE VOTE EECOKD 

The preceding diagram represents John 
Taffe's page in a Vote Eecording Book, to be 
kept in every election district office and on 
which TafTe can write on a single line, once in 
each week, the name of any qualified citizen 
whom he desires to occupy any respective office. 
The election-district-office must be open for vot- 
ing purposes every day in the year, excepting 
Sundays and legal holidays. At the end of each 
year, the voter must be assigned a new page. 
The name written on the lowest line is his choice 
for the office named at the top. Should TafTe 
sell his vote, by agreeing to vote for P. G. Hill 
as his candidate for governor, on the receipt of 
five dollars, he can do so, bv writing the name 
of P. G. Hill on a line under the title GOV- 
EENOE. The next week he can vote for W. 
Tweed and continue voting for Tweed, by letting 
Tweed's name stand, without any name written 
underneath, until he is given iive dollars more to 
write in the name of P. G. Hill a second time. 
The vote-buyers haven't enough money to keep 
all the vote-sellers, or an important part of 
them, constantly supporting any particular can- 
didate. 

The elector under this system can change his 
candidate, at almost any time, and, in this man- 
ner, directly nominate a candidate and exercise 
the "power of recall" over all public officials. 
Should a "repeater" write on Taffe's page the 
name of "J. Eyan" as the "repeater's" choice 
for mayor, the difference between the "re- 
peater's" handwriting and Taffe's being ap- 



THE VOTE EECORD 141 

parent, the evidence on which to convict the 
"repeater" of a crime is easily procured. The 
"repeater's" vote however must not be counted. 

Under "NEW LAWS" TafTe has voted to in- 
troduce into the state legislature law No. 
"3050" written by himself, and, in congress, 
law No. "2038" also written by himself. Under 
"LAWS REFERRED" TafTe has exercised the 
* ' referendum ' ' by voting for law No. " 98 " and 
against law No. "72," both of which have been 
referred to the voters. 

The "60%," at the top of the last right hand 
column, is the percentage of votes cast, which 
TafTe thinks, is necessary to elect a candidate to 
office. He also believes that, when a candidate 
has less than "40%" of the voters supporting 
him, said candidate must vacate his office. Ac- 
cording to this elector, a candidate can go into 
office when "60%" of the voters record him as 
their choice and stay there, until his supporters 
fall to below "40%" of the recorded votes, in 
the district or division through which the candi- 
date runs. It is the average of "percentages" 
as expressed by the various voters, that deter- 
mines the percentage necessary to elect to or 
eject from office. 

This system of voting embodies direct nomi- 
nations, referendum, power of recall, initiative, 
proportional voting, decides whether a plurality 
or majority shall elect to, or remove from office, 
makes it impossible for fraudulent "thugs" to. 
vote, without leaving indisputable evidence of 
their crime on the Vote Recording Book, and 



142 THE VOTE EECOED 

actually enables the people to control their pub- 
lic officials. 

Address 
The Society of the Tbite Kepublic, 
No. 149 Church Street, 

New York City. 

President, Alfred Urf er, 985 Amsterdam Ave- 
nue, New York, N. Y. 

Vice-President, Louis Kinloch, 555 Throop 
Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Treasurer, Thomas Doyle, 466 Willoughby 
Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Secretary, Thomas J. Sandford, 149 Church 
Street, New York City. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Nil III 111 III* 
027 293 673 



